


Ouroboros: the Endless Cycle

by WANMWAD



Category: Zootopia (2016)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, F/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-05
Updated: 2019-06-30
Packaged: 2019-07-07 04:42:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 42
Words: 168,848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15901107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WANMWAD/pseuds/WANMWAD
Summary: Judy is the first rabbit to become a member of the City Guard, the law enforcement group that keeps the magical city-state of Zootopia running smoothly. Her first real assignment should be simple: serving as a courier. She quickly finds, however, that she's been assigned to escort a mysterious fox alchemist and that not everything may be as it seems.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DrummerMax64](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DrummerMax64/gifts).



Judy couldn't remember the first time she had seen the Middle Wall any more than she could remember the first breath she had taken. It had simply always been there, a gleaming white ribbon that defined the edge of everything she had ever known. Even as she approached the Middle Wall, preparing to go past it for the first time in her life, it looked no different from how it had when she was a kit. From the outermost field of the Tochtli Barony it was perhaps twenty miles to the gentle curve of the Middle Wall, and at that distance it appeared almost completely perfect, the smooth white marred only by the War Gate, which appeared as a grayish smudge. Judy had gone to War Gate when she was younger, too, and as when she had first seen it up close it took her breath away.

The gate was simply enormous, easily more than forty feet tall and twenty feet wide, and yet it wasn't even a third as tall as the wall itself. The doors were the same white stone as the surrounding wall, but both had been worked into an elaborate bas relief carving of the conquest. Stone figures so realistically worked that they looked apt to step out and walk around depicted the entire war, the left door depicting everything from the breaching of the Outer and Middle Walls to Ocelotl's abdication. As a kit, the sheer scale of the violence shown had been difficult to imagine, the early advances of an invading army numbering in the thousands finally being met in kind at the Inner Wall. Claiming what were now the Outer and Middle Baronies was said to have been done in less than a day, the combination of surprise and unfamiliar magic allowing the invaders to hold all of Zootopia's farmlands before a defense could be mounted. Even then, in the face of overwhelming odds, the defenders had held the Inner Baronies for almost a year under constant siege before finally surrendering. Emperor Ocelotl was centered perfectly between the two doors, and while the left side showed him as he must have been as he surrendered, gaunt and wasted from starving alongside his subjects, it was the right side that Judy had appreciated as a kit and appreciated even more viewing it again as an adult.

The right door showed Ocelotl as he had been immediately before his death some twenty years after abdicating the throne, the elaborate costume he had worn as an emperor replaced with the far simpler garb of a duke, and the rest of the door was consumed by depictions of how the two societies, natives and invaders, had come together and rebuilt the city-state. There were images of the sharing of farming techniques to improve yields, of the elaborate additions made to the buildings at the heart of the city-state, and even of the two societies sharing their knowledge of the healing arts to cure the plague that had devastated both in the early years of their cooperation. The door even showed its own construction, detailing how the enormous hole that alchemists had put in the wall had been turned into a gate that memorialized all of the mammals involved. Judy's eyes traced over the images that had been burned into her memory years ago, from the banning of mammal sacrifice to the elevation of prey from little more than slaves to true equals. One of her distant ancestors, the first Baron of Tochtli, was shown, his face somehow both humble and proud as he accepted his responsibility from King Oveja I with the other newly minted barons.

At the bottom of the door, though, was the image that Judy had long held in mind, because it showed the very first members of the Zootopia City Guard. Their centuries-old uniforms were somewhat different from the one that she wore, but the resemblance was unmistakable even when comparing the uncolored stone to reality. Her steel breastplate was much less ornamented than theirs, and she had only two feathers attached to her bracelets rather than the half-dozen the first members of the City Guard had worn. The quilted tunic and trousers she wore were also significantly less bulky, and she had a belt of quauhxicallis at her waist that would have been the envy of any of those early guards. The most significant piece of her uniform that the first generation of guards lacked, however, was the golden torc at her throat with its single obsidian starburst stud that announced her position and rank. Even though she had worn it for nearly a month, Judy's paw sometimes still went to the torc, as if to confirm that it was still there. There had been plenty of mammals who had said that a rabbit could never join the City Guard, but she had never forgotten how inspired she had been to see the War Gate. Seeing it again, on her first official assignment that used her as more than just a warm body that could hold a spear, made her heart well up with pride.

"You the courier?" a voice suddenly asked, completely breaking Judy's line of thought.

She turned as quickly as she could to face the member of the City Guard who had been waiting for her arrival, trying not to stumble under the weight of her pack. Travelling from the center of Zootopia to the edge of the Middle Baronies had been a journey of about a day, but reaching the settlement in the ruins of the Outer Baronies would take at least three and she had packed accordingly. "Yessir," Judy replied, giving the pig a sharp salute, "Ensign Tochtli, reporting for duty."

He returned her salute in a far more sloppy fashion, more of a vague motion of his arm than anything else, but his very appearance would have gotten him chewed out in the city center. The pig wasn't wearing his steel breastplate and the quilted tunic that strained at his ample gut was rumpled and had a number of curious stains on it. The feathers at his wrists were sadly sparse looking and even the golden torc at his neck looked smudged. Judy understood that guarding the War Gate was more of a ceremonial duty than anything else—it had to have been at least two hundred years since the last time raiders had made any serious effort at invading the city-state, and even that attempt had been a spectacular failure on their part—but that only made it all the more appalling. The guards who had been on duty when she had visited as a kit could have been illustrations for how the uniform should be worn, and even when they had rushed to her aid they had been perfect professionals. She hadn't needed their help, of course, as even the silver torc she had worn when she had been nothing more than one of the middle kits of a middling baron had been protection enough, but that was entirely beside the point. "Hmm," the pig grunted, appearing completely unimpressed by her enthusiasm as he looked down at a crumpled piece of paper he had produced from inside his tunic, "Ensign Tochtli, then."

He squinted down at the words and then looked up at Judy. "From the Tochtli Barony? You're close to home."

The Middle Wall defined an area so enormous that, standing next to it the wall appeared straight rather than curved, but Tochtli Barony was just barely visible since the day was fair and the sky was clear. The great stone farmhouse that would have been a castle were it not itself enclosed in such an enormous wall appeared hazy and dreamlike from where it stood perhaps thirty miles away. Judy had been somewhat tempted to stop on her way, if only to show her parents that she was a real member of the City Guard, but her desire to impress the mammal in charge of the gate with how quickly she reported for duty had won out. Although, considering it had clearly been a futile effort by the bored expression on the pig's face, Judy felt a touch of regret for missing her family. "Well, I've got your orders," the pig said, plowing on without waiting for an answer, "Escort the package to Phoenix."

Judy had already known what her assignment was, but if there was one thing she had learned during her time in the City Guard it was that they loved to repeat themselves. She was about to ask the pig if he had the package when the way he had phrased her orders struck her. "Escort, sir?" she asked, "I thought I would be carrying the package myself."

Judy had been under no illusions about what couriers did, and while getting assigned to carry a package alone through the ruins of what had once been the outermost part of the city-state hadn't seemed particularly glamorous, it had seemed a decent opportunity to demonstrate her value. Escorting even a small convoy of supplies out to the lone settlement in the Outer Baronies would be a much greater opportunity, and Judy briefly indulged in thinking of what it would be like to keep a careful eye out from the front seat of a caravan before the pig's words intruded on her fantasy. "Carry?" he said, and his chuckling was unpleasant, "If you can lift him, you're welcome to try. Come on, ensign, meet what you'll be escorting."

The pig gestured her to follow him inside the guardhouse, which only appeared small due to the enormous scale of the gate and wall it was next to. It was built of the same seemingly perfect white stone blocks as the wall, each block about three feet on a side and fit so tightly together that Judy couldn't have gotten so much as a hair into the gaps between each block. The guardhouse was actually one of a pair, for it was mirrored on either side of the gate, both seeming identical. The guardhouses were about thirty feet long by twenty feet wide and rather squat. Neither had any windows, but when they entered the space was nonetheless brightly lit by alchemical torches that burned evenly and without so much as a hint of flickering behind the glass globes that contained them. The guardhouse was, at least, somewhat neater in appearance than the pig who had greeted her, although not by much. The main space of the guardhouse was dominated by a number of desks pushed off in the corners covered with untidy stacks of paperwork, and in the middle of the room there was an enormous wooden table with a patolli board on top of it, around which there were three mammals playing. Two of them, an alpaca and a goat, wore City Guard uniforms somewhat neater than the pig's, but the third was definitely not a guard. He was a fox, and although the torc around his neck was the dull bronze of a merchant, Judy had never before seen a merchant who didn't apply any ornamentation to their torc. Where most merchants would decorate their torcs with baubles indicating their guild memberships—perfectly formed gold or silver ornaments in the shape of their guild symbols for the better off or colored twists of string for the poorer ones—his was completely bare, but he certainly dressed as though he was prosperous. He wore a bottle-green coat with brass buttons that had been left casually open, exposing an embroidered vest and a shirt that looked as though it was made of silk.

When Judy saw him, her paw went involuntarily to her cheek, feeling the scars hidden beneath the fur, before she lowered it, ashamed of her reaction. It wasn't fair to the fox to assume he was anything like her one-time tormentor all those years ago when she had first visited the War Gate. In any event, he certainly didn't look or sound anything like that young fox; even leaving aside his obvious lack of scars identical to her own, he was tall and lanky where Gideon had been short and thick for a fox. The fox at the table, who was cheerfully scooping in his winnings with exaggerated thanks to Macuilxōchitl for his good fortune, had a surprisingly cultured voice with a distinct Inner Baronies accent. Besides, if she assumed he was a self-serving coward and traitor like Oztoyehuatl was said to have been when he betrayed Ocelotl then she was no better than all the mammals who had said a rabbit couldn't join the City Guard.

The pig cleared his throat, cutting off both the playful grumbling of the two guards who seemed to have lost about a day's wages to the fox and Judy's thoughts, and announced, "Your escort is here."

The fox stood up from the table and walked over to where Judy stood. "How do you do?" he asked, cutting a low bow, "Nicholas the Alchemist, at your service, but you can call me Nick."

Judy could only gape at him for a moment, for he might as well have announced that he was a rabbit wearing a fox costume. When she had been in training at the heart of Zootopia she had seen one or two alchemists before, but they had seemed to delight in making it known to everyone who passed them on the street that they were alchemists, with their long hooded robes embroidered with mystical symbols in gold threads and elaborately ornamented torcs bearing the ouroboros of their guild. Their order was also, from what Judy had heard in whispers from the recruits from the Inner Baronies, entirely composed of prey mammals. " _You're_ an alchemist?" she blurted, and when the words came out she realized how disbelieving she must have sounded and hastily added, "I'm sorry, I'm sure that you are one, and there's no reason a fox can't be one but I just wasn't expecting a fox to..."

That, she realized, was only making it worse, and Judy rather lamely finished, "You're not dressed like an alchemist."

Nick laughed, and there seemed to be genuine amusement in his emerald green eyes. "No, no, you're right, I'm not," he said, waving a paw dismissively, "But look at you! You must be the first bunny member of the City Guard, Ensign...?"

"Judy of the Tochtli Barony," Judy said, and the sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach only got worse.

Not only had she judged him and suggested that he couldn't be a member of his profession, but he had in turn been perfectly polite to her and her own admittedly unusual career for a rabbit. "Well how about that. Ensign Tochtli, you certainly seem to be one of the more perceptive members of the City Guard," he said, and it seemed to Judy that he wore a half-smile as he spoke.

"Now that you're introduced," the pig interrupted, scowling at the fox, " _You_  have your escort. Ensign, you have your assignment. Manada, Vicugna, get the gate."

"Thank you, it has been an absolute pleasure, really, and you've been an extremely gracious host," Nick said, offering his paw for the pig to shake as the two other guards hurried off.

The guardmammal seemed extremely reluctant to take the fox's paw, but did so at last, his scowl deepening as he did so. If it fazed Nick at all the fox did not show it, for he seemed entirely cheerful as he swept a thick pack made out of glossy black snakeskin off the floor and onto his back, setting off for the door. Judy wasn't sure how the War Gate operated; it might have been purely mechanical or it might have been assisted by alchemy in some fashion, but it certainly wasn't something that had been covered in her training. However it worked, though, by the time she and Nick were outside the guardhouse the gate was open and she could do little more than stare in awe.

The last and only time she had been to the gate the guards hadn't opened it, so with the enormous doors open before her she saw for the first time what remained of the Outer Baronies. Unlike Tochtli Barony, which was lushly green and fertile with farmland stretching as far as the eye could see, or the Inner Baronies, where the densest collection of buildings in the city-state were and where powerful magic turned the climate on its head, the Outer Baronies were as ruined as Judy had always read. The ground looked to be nothing more than grit and ash, pockmarked and cratered by some long-ago calamity. What little plant life grew looked sickly and poisonous, clinging around filthy little pools of water. The remains of the Outer Wall some fifty miles off in the distance were barely visible through the haze, but the blocks looked to have taken on a nasty brownish color. Nick seemed to notice her expression of awe and he looked down at her. "Have you ever been beyond the Middle Wall?" she asked, and he nodded.

"A few times," he said breezily as they walked towards the gate and the blasted landscape that lay beyond, "There's good money to be made in Phoenix."

"Oh," Judy replied, "Are you representing the Alchemist Guild? Is that why I'm escorting you?"

It made perfect sense to her that a member of Zootopia's most powerful guild would warrant an escort from the City Guard, so she was surprised when he shook his head. "I'm not a member of the Alchemist Guild," he said, fingering his unadorned torc as if to show her its lack of a guild symbol.

Judy found herself suddenly intensely curious as to why a merchant alchemist who didn't seem to belong to any guild warranted an escort, and most of all why she had been chosen for the job. "So why am I escorting you?"

Nick did not respond for a long moment, staying silent as they walked through the opening in the Middle Wall. It was so amazingly thick that it was like walking through a tunnel, and when they were about halfway through he simply said, "Because you're a new member of the City Guard from the Middle Baronies and I'm not a member of the Alchemist Guild. You get the assignment none of the more experienced guardsmammals want and I get an..."

He paused for a moment before continuing, "Inexperienced escort."

There was no rancor in his voice, but it was hard not to take it as an insult, particularly because she had the awful sense that he was right. "Oh," she said.

"Well, you have to learn somewhere," he replied with surprising cheerfulness, "So chin up, Ensign Carrots, you get to spend the next two to three days with me."

"Please don't call me that," Judy replied, but she could feel herself smiling a little at his teasing anyway.

Maybe he was right and it was a completely meaningless assignment. Maybe he wasn't. But either way, she was going to do her absolute best to make sure he got to Phoenix.

* * *

**Author's Notes:**

This story is a bit different from anything else I've ever written on a few counts. For starters, it's a fantasy setting that I developed, rather than a continuation of the movie's continuity or an interpretation of historical fact. Which isn't to say I used no historical facts in writing this story, but I'll get to that in a bit. The other major characteristic that makes this story unique among my work is that it's the first time I've ever written a story specifically for someone else. DrummerMax64, I do hope that you enjoy it, and I do appreciate you being so patient waiting for it! Hopefully it'll meet your expectations, and I hope it's also interesting to a general audience. Speaking of which, I'm posting this for two reasons: the first is that my currently running Sherlock AU "The Unlikely Heir" is rapidly coming to its end, and the second is to celebrate my second year of posting my work online, since this is the anniversary of when I started. In the two years I've been at this, I've now posted 113 chapters across five different stories. Thank you very much for reading; I really cannot say how much the support I've gotten over these past two years has meant to me.

The guidance that DrummerMax64 gave me was pretty simple: a fantasy story something kind of like Dragon Age and Game of Thrones that is an adventure and romance story. This is what I came up with, and while I tried to make the setting somewhat unique there is an underlying idea I had the guided it.

I was inspired by the Spanish-Aztec War of 1519 to 1521, which is a particularly interesting conflict in terms of the combatants and the way that it went. The Spanish invaders assembled a coalition of allies native to the region and defeated the Aztec Empire, following which the Spanish intermingled with the defeated Aztecs. However, I thought it'd be kind of interesting to have an event like that in the past of the setting rather than being the actual focus. Thus, as is mentioned in this chapter, centuries before the events of this story Zootopia had an entirely different ruling system with a completely different culture, but it was conquered by foreign invaders with their own culture who adapted what was there to serve their purposes. Of course, considering that the invaders deposed an emperor and installed a king, you might reasonably question how "equal" the society is.

As an advantage of the fantasy setting, I also developed two different systems of magic, one developed by the original inhabitants of the city and one developed by the invaders. I'll get into those later, as I tried to write this so that the relevant details come up organically in the story.

"Tochtli" is the Nahuatl word for "rabbit," and "ocelotl" the word for "jaguar." "Oveja" is Spanish for "sheep." The word "quauhxicalli" literally means "eagle gourd bowl" and is a sort of container that the Aztecs used for holding human hearts after performing a sacrifice. I tried to write this story in such a way that my author's notes aren't necessary to understand the setting, so rather than explaining now what a quauhxicalli is in this setting I'll just note that Judy's understanding that this version of Zootopia does not perform sacrifices that are fatal to the victim is correct.

"Patolli" is a real board game that the Aztecs played, and it involved a combination of luck and strategy as players attempted to move their pieces around the board while engaging in wagers against each other. During play, there is a symbolic space set aside for the god Macuilxōchitl, who would have offerings made to him during play and from whom rewards would be provided to players from the resources pooled to him.

Macuilxōchitl is one of the names for Xōchipilli, the Aztec god of art, games, beauty, dance, flowers, and song, with "Macuilxōchitl" literally meaning "five flower." "Oztoyehuatl" is the Nahuatl word for "gray fox skin" and is being used here to suggest that there's some extremely long-standing bias against foxes, although I'll refrain from commenting on whether or not Oztoyehuatl was actually a self-serving traitor. In general, though, writing this story I made the assumption that names would typically become more Western over the centuries due to how the city-state was taken over.

"Manada" is the Spanish word for "herd" and "Vicugna" is the genus that alpaca belong to.

Thanks for reading! I'd love to know what you thought!


	2. Chapter 2

"I'm sorry, captain, but surely you can't be suggesting that crime going  _down_ is a cause for concern. Isn't that a testament to you and our brave City Guard?" the council member asked.

Captain General Bogo simply looked back at the mammal who had posed the question evenly. It had been years since he had been merely a captain, back before the queen had married, let alone given birth to the princess who watched the proceedings of what would eventually be her council with keen interest. It had been a deliberate slight, he was sure, but one that he refused to show any irritation at. Council member Esteban Cerdo was soft and pudgy, the pig's rolling folds of fat not quite hidden by his elaborately embroidered clothes. Still, although it was nearly hidden beneath his many chins, the torc around his neck was unmistakably made of platinum and encrusted with jewels where his grandfather's had been the bronze of a middling merchant. The council member's father had been the one to elevate the Cerdo family to the ranks of nobility, but it was Esteban who had managed to make them almost unimaginably wealthy. There was intelligence in those beady little eyes, no matter how much he liked to present himself as a dull flatterer whose rank was simply good fortune, and he was one of the mammals Bogo had vowed never to underestimate.

That the Queen's Council would be nearly as much trouble as the actual criminals of Zootopia had been one of the things that Bogo hadn't even considered when he had started his career with the City Guard, back when he had held no greater concerns than pickpockets and smugglers. His immediate predecessor in the role of captain general had joked with Bogo, immediately before her retirement, that the same tactics worked on both groups. At the time, Bogo had smiled politely and nodded, but years of political wrangling had completely eliminated any humor he had once found in the idea. "Crime going down is not the problem," Bogo said, choosing each word carefully, "The problem is not knowing what comes next. We need additional mammals for the City Guard or—"

"Forgive me for interrupting, captain general," council member Leodore Corazón said, "But hasn't my initiative already given you dozens of new officers? If you need more, I'm sure we can make arrangements."

For all the control that Bogo had shown in the face of Cerdo's words, the massive buffalo couldn't keep a slight frown from his face at Corazón's interjection, which he should have known was coming. The lion was responsible for what Bogo saw as the weakening of the City Guard by flooding it with candidates that never would have been accepted in the past. Still, Corazón could be surprisingly persuasive, and despite Bogo's protests the queen had at last bowed to his suggestion that a more diverse City Guard would be better-suited to the needs of policing the city-state and thrown generations of tradition on their head. The reports Bogo had read were frankly appalling—one of the newest officers was apparently a rabbit doe and another was a male raccoon, neither one of which had the size, strength, or natural aptitude for the work. "It is not that the City Guard is ungrateful," Bogo replied, "But we are in need of more traditional officers."

"Times change, captain general!" Corazón said, with quite a bit of cheer, "I hear it was one of my non-traditional officers at the top of her class."

Bogo ground his teeth as he considered the lion. Whether Corazón was deliberately attempting to weaken the City Guard or if he simply didn't care if that was the end result of his political machinations made no difference. "A fluke that will not be repeated," Bogo said.

"Why's that?" Corazón challenged, and the lion actually stood up from his seat as he began to pace the council room.

The Royal Palace was one of the oldest buildings in Zootopia, a massive stepped pyramid located precisely at the center of the city-state. Everything flowed outwards from it or fed back into it, and countless generations of mammals had shaped the design into whatever had suited their needs for the moment. The temple that had occupied the top of the pyramid had been razed generations ago as an indelible symbol of the conquest, and the palace that had been built in its place had continuously grown in the only direction it had left to go—upwards. The age of the council room was evident in how low it was in the building, nestled floors below the grandiose towers that branched outwards like the limbs of a tree, and the stone floor had been worn smooth by generations of feet. The circular table at the center of the room was a single massive piece of stone, so large around that no mammal could have reached from one end to the other, and the center of the table had a replica of the city-state in exquisite miniature that by itself was nearly six feet around. Alchemical torches lit the model from within, and significantly larger and brighter lights illuminated the windowless council room and gleamed off of Corazón's golden fur and the metal threads woven into his clothes. Although at the moment there were only seven mammals in the council room—Bogo, Cerdo, Corazón, the queen, the princess, Cencerro, and the door guard—the room could have easily sat a hundred mammals Bogo's size, and with its elaborately vaulted ceiling with massive flying buttresses all covered with vaguely grotesque engravings of faces even a giraffe would have found the amount of headroom excessive. The same design that made the room visually impressive also worked to Corazón's advantage as he spoke, his already booming voice amplified and made even more powerful with no magic beyond the skill of the long-forgotten architect who had designed the space. "Think of the advances we've made in the past few decades," Corazón said, the cadence of his voice changing as he fell into what seemed to be his favorite topic, "Fifty years ago, torcs like the ones we all wear now were impossible, but now the city's safer than it's ever been. We've pushed the limits of magic further than anyone ever has and reaped the rewards. With a modern set of quauhxicallis, any mammal can be an effective member of the City Guard."

"Well said," Cencerro chimed in, the little ewe nodding her approval at Corazón's words, " _I_ have heard—and I'm sure you've heard the same, captain general—that there are a number of mammals from my own barony now proudly serving our great city."

As the representative from the Lanolin Barony the diminutive mammal held quite a bit more power than either Cerdo or Corazón, as the queen was from the same barony even if there was no direct relation between the two sheep. For the most part, she held her tongue in council meetings, although Bogo suspected that she had the queen's ear in private more than anyone else did. "Be that as may," Bogo said, "The void left by the collapse of the Black Paw will not last long. We must—"

"Empty the city's accounts to deal with your what-ifs?" Cerdo interrupted, his face almost hatefully smug, "You've done fine work, but it is as Corazón said. We've reached the point where we simply don't  _need_ a large City Guard."

"I believe you've misunderstood my point, Lord Cerdo," Corazón said, "It's not that—"

"Did you not say that our magic is more powerful than ever?" Cerdo interrupted again, "I simply do not see—"

"You must—" Corazón began, and then the queen coughed delicately.

"We seem to have gotten somewhat distracted," the queen said, and any further retorts anyone else at the table might have had were instantly lost.

Although the queen was a sheep, the same as Cencerro, their similarities ended there. Cencerro was unusually short, her clothes fairly unremarkable for a member of the nobility, and she had something of a tendency to vanish from notice due to her typically timid nature. Queen Lana III was the direct descendant of King Oveja I and despite the generations separating the two the resemblance to the ancient depictions of the first king of Zootopia was obvious. Queen Lana was tall for a sheep and unusually slender even when the fact that she preferred to keep her wool sheared close to her skin was accounted for. She wore a dress of pale blue silk, precisely the same color as her eyes, with tiny feathers at the shoulders. The dress was delicately embroidered with birds and flowers in glittering beads of precious stones, and her crown was a magnificent creation that alternated feathers worked in gold with real ones. The platinum torc around her neck had an enormous diamond that had been turned into an unparalleled alchemical torch which glowed with its own internal light, and the sheer opulence of the queen's clothes completely outdid what everyone else in the room was wearing.

"Captain General Bogo," she continued, and Bogo thought he saw the small glimmer of a smile at the queen's lips despite the serious expression on her face, "You believe we have the opportunity to prevent the rise of another criminal syndicate such as the Black Paw?"

"Yes, your majesty," Bogo replied, bowing low, "We cannot rely on getting lucky with informants."

That the Black Paw had fallen apart at all had been an incredible stroke of luck made possible only by a bear highly placed in the organization giving up everything he knew, which had been quite a lot. It was undeniably the greatest success of Bogo's tenure as the head of the City Guard, and quite possibly the greatest success the city's protectors had had in the last hundred years, which made it all the more appalling to Bogo that it was leading to yet more political maneuvering as each of the most important members of the Queen's Council vied for an advantage. The only saving grace of the current meeting was that the full council had not been convened; if everyone who sat on the council had been present it likely would have taken hours longer to accomplish even less. "Princess Isabel," the queen said suddenly, "What do you think?"

The princess suddenly sat up somewhat straighter, her mouth momentarily wide in surprise before she caught herself and checked her reaction. Princess Isabel did not particularly resemble her mother, or indeed any other mammal Bogo had ever seen before, because she was a chimera, a mammal that only existed thanks to the influence of powerful magic that had made it possible for a sheep to be the mother and a jaguar to be the father. Although she was not quite fully grown at thirteen she was still quite a bit taller than her mother, and while her legs ended with hooves her arms did not, and the claws in her paws looked as wicked as any full-blooded predator. Her coat wasn't exactly fur or wool, but somewhere in between with a blurry pattern of tawny rosettes and black spots. Her tail wasn't quite as long as that of any jaguar Bogo had ever seen before, although her ears were longer, and her mouth was full of both sharp fangs and blunt teeth.

Princess Isabel had been an unprecedented compromise, and Bogo wasn't sure what would have happened if her mother hadn't married the descendant of Emperor Ocelotl and agreed to bear an heir that would for the first time unit the two lines of royalty. "Well," the princess said hesitantly, "I suppose we must trust Captain General Bogo's judgement. You have told me a queen is only as strong as her advisers."

The queen nodded slowly. "And should he be wrong and we bankrupt the treasury as Lord Cerdo fears?" she asked, and Bogo thought he caught a slight sarcastic tinge to her words as she poked at the pig.

"Then the responsibility is ours," Princess Isabel replied promptly, and the queen smiled slightly.

Bogo knew she was proud of her daughter; although it was relatively rare for him to speak to the queen alone he thought he knew her well enough to tell that much. The queen would sometimes ask him what the general populace thought of her daughter, who was one of likely less than two dozen chimeras in the entire city, and Bogo had always been honest. It wasn't always easy—there were sometimes incredibly cruel messages daubed on walls or spread through illicit publications—but from what Bogo had seen the princess would make a fine queen one day. If, that was, a suitable husband could be found for her; by the very nature of her birth it seemed as though every noble family, no matter how small or large, thought they had a chance at making a match since all of the princess's offspring would by necessity have to be chimeras. The political scuffles almost made Bogo long for his days of patrolling the streets; he would have taken pickpockets over nobles any day.

"I believe the matter to be settled, then," the queen said, "Captain General Bogo, you have authorization to recruit an additional two cohorts, looking first to non-traditional candidates."

It was about the best that Bogo had hoped for, and it wasn't as thought there were an excessive number of mammals from species who had not previously been permitted to join the City Guard interested in the organization. The likely worst case scenario, in his mind, was perhaps a half-cohort lost to Corazón's scheme, which was at least tolerable. Getting the queen to revoke her support for the lion's pet project was likely a losing battle, but it was one he would fight at a later day. "Thank you, your majesty," Bogo said, bowing low again.

Bogo had turned and was about to walk towards the exit when the door to the council room, an enormous piece of stone so heavy that two elephants couldn't have carried it but so perfectly balanced on its hinges that just about any mammal could open it, slammed open hard enough to fill the room with the echoing crack of shattering stone. The mammal guarding the door to the council room didn't even have time to react as a mammal suddenly ran in with unnatural speed directly towards the princess, slipping past the guard before he could so much as lower his spear. Bogo's reaction, though, was immediate. One hoof went to his heavy cloak of feathers and released the clasp as the other went to his waist, his fingers unerringly seizing the quauhxicalli engraved with the image of a colibri. His cloak had barely hit the ground by the time he had the quauhxicalli to his mouth, the metallic taste of the contents burning the way that they always did. It couldn't have taken more than a few seconds, but the mammal who had ran into the room had already covered almost half of the distance between the door and the princess, moving with such speed that they were a blur.

Until, that is, the intruder suddenly wasn't. Bogo's vision sharpened and pulsed as the effects of the quauhxicalli's contents took hold, the potion derived from the blood of a hummingbird making the mammal seem to move no faster than a normal mammal could by running. The intruder was a llama wearing an unremarkable tunic and trousers, both of roughly spun fabric, charging forward with a sword held straight out in a way that told Bogo the llama had never had any formal training with it. A tin torc gleamed dully at the llama's neck, and his features were distorted into a terrible expression of hate and anger as he continued to run unerringly for the princess.

The hoof Bogo had used to free his overly heavy and restrictive cloak of colorful feathers had gone for another quauhxicalli the instant it was free, but he felt as though he was moving underwater, his body unable to match the speed at which he could see until he had finished drinking the little vial engraved with the image of a cheetah. Even then, as he ran to intercept the llama, it didn't seem as though he would be fast enough, not even the speed of a cheetah the potion had granted him even close to how fast the llama assassin was moving. It didn't seem possible—criminals sometimes did get their paws on quauhxicallis, but almost never ones as good as what the City Guard had and absolutely never ones that were better—but the proof was before his own eyes. The llama twisted as Bogo approached, his long nails clattering on the worn stone of the floor as he tried to dodge. With the power of the colibri quauhxicalli enhancing his reflexes, the sound was oddly distorted, and Bogo shook away the observation that had bubbled up into his mind as he focused on stopping the llama before it was too late.

Dimly, Bogo was aware that he had yelled for the llama to stop, but the sound was just as distorted to his ears, seeming to come out too slowly to make any sense as he lunged for the llama. The llama twisted again, impossibly fast, and Bogo saw flecks of blood coming from the llama's feet as whatever quauhxicalli he had used pushed his body beyond its limits, the flesh of his soles wearing away as he ran. For a moment, which might have only been a second but felt like an eternity, Bogo thought that he had failed, that the llama would make it past him, but then the llama stumbled.

It seemed as though the would-be assassin had slipped on the blood he was losing through the bottoms of his feet, his last dodge making him lose his balance faster than he could recover it. The llama staggered and with a wordless cry stabbed at Bogo, the tip of the sword glancing off the buffalo's silver-plated breastplate before finding its mark in his shoulder. At nearly the same instant that Bogo felt the pain of being stabbed, slowed and dulled though it was in his heightened state of awareness, he felt the magic of his torc lash out.

It had been decades since Bogo had been injured before in the line of duty, more often by mammals too panicked to realize what a terrible idea it was, and to his relief despite whatever the llama had used to push his speed beyond even what a quauhxicalli derived from cheetah blood could do he wasn't immune to the torc's response.

A bloodstain suddenly appeared on the shoulder of the llama's tunic as a wound identical to the one he had inflicted appeared, a small red patch that grew sluggishly to Bogo's perception but must have been bleeding rather quickly. The sword fell from the llama's fingers as the mammal collapsed in slow motion, his momentum carrying him across the floor even as his feet came out from under him. He left a streak of blood across it, and Bogo could hear the slow crack of breaking bones as the unyielding floor mercilessly met the llama's fragile body.

Still, Bogo took no chances, his own injury completely forgotten as he ran over to the limp form of the intruder. The colibri quauhxicalli was already beginning to wear off, burning off the way it always did even as it made his vision swim in and out of focus as colors seemed to go from being unnaturally bright to gray-tinged. The speed of a cheetah would last a few minutes longer, but before even reaching the llama Bogo knew it would make no difference. The llama's head was twisted at an impossible angle, turned almost all the way around on his neck from tumbling across a stone floor far faster than any mammal should have been able to run. The llama's chest was completely motionless, and Bogo knew that he was dead.

Bogo turned around, looking to the other occupants of the room. The lion who had been guarding the door—Bogo searched his memory briefly for his name and couldn't come up with it—was only a step behind him, his spear at the ready. "Lieutenant," Bogo said, his voice surprisingly even to his own ears; the buffalo was not even slightly squeamish when it came to violence, but the aftereffects of taking quauhxicallis tended to be unpleasant, "I want to know how this mammal got in and I want to be sure there aren't any more assassins. Have the entire palace searched, top to bottom. No one leaves and no one enters without my permission."

The lion, to his credit, saluted crisply and ran for the door. "And get more guards in here," Bogo called after him.

The lion called back an acknowledgement as he left the room, shutting the ruined door behind himself. "Your majesties," Bogo said, turning to face the queen and the princess.

The two mammals were clutching each other, eyes wide with fear, and Bogo couldn't blame them. It had been generations since it had last happened, but it was far from unheard of for a ruler to be deposed by assassination, and in all the time Bogo had led the City Guard he had never seen an attempt come so close to success. The Royal Palace should have been impossible for an unauthorized mammal to enter, and no mammal should have been capable of moving as fast as the llama. Clearly, the llama had been devoted enough to his cause to be willing to die with his target, because even if he had succeeded in inflicting a mortal wound on the princess her torc would have caused him to suffer the same. "I promise you, we will find the mammal or mammals behind this," Bogo said.

No one else in the room seemed capable of saying anything; Cerdo's normally pinkish skin had gone almost white, his weak jaw hanging loosely, and the expressions of shock that Cencerro and Corazón wore were nearly identical. Still, as Bogo looked at the members of the Queen's Council in the room, an unpleasant thought occurred to him. Was it one of them, or one of the members of the Queen's Council who hadn't been present who was responsible? Had the petty political bickering at last exploded into treason? "Captain general," the princess said, rather faintly, as she interrupted his thoughts, "You're bleeding."

Bogo looked down at his chest and saw that blood was flowing down his armor, the droplets only sticking to his breastplate in the scuff mark the llama had gouged into it. The pain of his stab wound suddenly forced itself to the forefront of his mind, and along with it a dull ache in his chest from the glancing blow the llama had made to his armor before finding a softer target. "I'll be fine," he said.

"Thank you," the queen said, and Bogo nodded, his attention already elsewhere.

Perhaps the assassin had done a thorough job of covering his tracks, or perhaps not. Whatever the case, Bogo would absolutely not stop until he had answers.

* * *

**Author's Notes:**

I've based the ranks in this story off of the Spanish military; the rank of captain general is the highest rank in the Spanish Army. Similarly, Judy's rank of ensign is the lowest possible officer rank in the Spanish military. I chose to use the English spellings for all ranks, although there was some appeal to having her title be alférez and Bogo's be capitán general.

In any case, this story also does something I've never done before by having not just different viewpoint characters but also different plot threads that they follow. My first story did switch between the perspectives of Nick and Judy, but since they were almost always together I suppose it didn't really make much of a difference. In this case, Nick and Judy are traveling to the point in Zootopia furthest away from where Bogo is, so there will be quite a bit of difference in what they're experience. Next week it will be back to Judy and the trip across the wastelands; hopefully you'll find both of these different plots engaging.

As part of my attempt to suggest a history inspired by the Spanish-Aztec War, the Royal Palace is somewhat inspired by the Templo Mayor, an Aztec temple in the city that was the seat of the Aztec Empire, which eventually became Mexico City.

"Corazón" is Spanish for "heart" and serves to give a name to this story's version of Lionheart. Similarly, "cencerro" is Spanish for "cowbell" and gives a name to this story's version of Bellwether, while "cerdo" means "pork" and gives a name I thought appropriate for a pig. The Lanolin Barony is named for lanolin, a wax that wool-bearing mammals (such as sheep) secrete that helps in waterproofing their wool.

This chapter begins to reveal some of the details of the systems of magic that I created for this story, beginning with the existence of chimeras. For the purposes of this chapter, I didn't think it really fit to explain how exactly chimeras are created, but Princess Isabel is what would be an impossibility in the real world due to being the offspring of a sheep and a jaguar. I generally assume, for my Zootopia stories, that only hybrids of the sort possible in the real world are possible, but the existence of magic opens up quite a few possibilities. I will say, though, that the creation of chimeras is something that needs to be deliberately done rather than being possible without magical intervention.

Next up, in terms of magic, is the quauhxicalli. These were inspired by the Aztec practice of human sacrifice, and while in real life a quauhxicalli would be used to store human hearts following sacrifice, in this story they are small vials containing potions made from blood that temporarily give someone the traits of the animal that the blood came from. "Colibri" is the genus of hummingbirds, which really do have an incredible ability to track fast moving stimuli.

The torcs are my take on the shock collars from the early version of Zootopia, with something of a twist in how they work. In this series, everyone wears one, with the material it is made of and how it is decorated serving as an indicator of social rank, and they serve as a deterrent to physical violence in a very simple way: if you injure someone, their torc will cause you to suffer an identical injury. Subsequent chapters will go into a little more detail about how they are made, how they work, and their limitations, but I thought it would just bog down the narrative in this chapter. I did develop this setting in such a way that I wanted to avoid the trope of medieval stasis, where a fantasy setting has apparently gone with absolutely no advances for hundreds or thousands of years. The torcs are explicitly said to be a fairly recent development in this chapter, having been if not invented than at the very least having been made practical less than a century before the story starts, and there will continue to be other nods to things that have changed.

As always, thanks for reading! I'd love to know what you thought.


	3. Chapter 3

"What are you  _doing?_ " Judy asked, and in her surprise she was completely unable to keep the incredulity from her voice.

"What does it look like I'm doing?" Nick asked, and there seemed to be genuine curiosity in his voice.

At very nearly the same moment that the gate that connected the Outer Baronies to the Middle Baronies had closed with a rumbling finality, Nick had reached up to his neck and removed his torc. Judy had seen plenty of depictions of mammals from the distant past without torcs but had never before seen anyone except newborns without one. Even the youngest of her siblings had worn torcs that alternated solid panels with fine mesh chain that could be expanded as they and their necks grew, and the sight of Nick's exposed and slightly matted fur where his torc had rested brought forth a sense of impropriety and wrongness she couldn't quite put into words. The alchemist, however, seemed completely unperturbed by his act, simply looking down at her with his torc in one paw as the other massaged and fluffed the fur at his neck. The arcane symbols etched into the torc's interior surface glowed dimly in the sunlight before he stashed it away into an interior pocket of his bottle-green coat.

"You took your torc off," Judy said, feeling rather foolish at having to state the obvious.

"Yes, yes I did," Nick replied, and a smile crept across his features as he carelessly spun around and started walking away from the gate.

Judy stood rooted in place for a moment before her sense of duty demanded that she see to her job, and she quickly caught up with the fox, who was walking with something of a jaunty stride despite the heavy-looking pack on his back that clinked musically at each step. "Why?" she asked, and the fox chuckled.

"Why not?" he said, and the smile on his face grew a touch smugger, "It's not like it works outside the Middle Wall. And if it did—which it doesn't—it wouldn't do anything if you decided to run me through with that spear of yours. So why bother?"

Judy couldn't help but gape at him; he might as well have asked why mammals wore trousers or didn't relieve themselves in public. Dimly, some part of her mind recognized that both of his points were correct; the magic that empowered the torcs didn't function beyond the Middle Wall, and as a member of the City Guard it was true that she could inflict any injury she wished upon a mammal without the magic of their torc affecting her in an identical fashion. It was a privilege that had made the City Guard especially feared by some citizens, but Judy took her vow to use her authority responsibly seriously enough to be more than a little offended at his insinuation. "I hope I haven't put the idea in your head, by the way," Nick added, interrupting her thoughts, "I would hate to be stabbed."

"I won't stab you!" Judy protested, her ears back, and she pulled her spear back too to emphasize the point.

"I'm delighted to hear that," Nick replied, rather deadpan, and he continued walking.

Judy followed him silently for a while, taking in the bleak and ruined landscape of the Outer Baronies. The path they were following might have been a road, once upon a time, but centuries of blowing grit had left it as little more than an uneven rut. There were occasional craters, somewhat incongruously full of what looked like shattered and milky glass, but the landscape was otherwise fairly flat. Eventually, though, the view became monotonous, and Judy could no longer hold in her curiosity about her odd traveling companion. She had never even heard a mammal talk about the idea of taking their torc off, let alone one who had actually done it, and despite his rather blasé assertion that it didn't serve any useful purpose outside the heart of Zootopia she wondered if he had some ulterior motive. The possibilities she came up with—elaborate criminal scheme, a kind of deviant preference, something related to alchemy—all seemed about equally possible, but then she wondered if he had meant it as a distraction.

Perhaps he had meant only to throw her off-balance to conceal the true purpose for his trip to Phoenix and why it merited an escort by the City Guard. If that had been his intent, he had succeeded admirably; he hadn't quite answered her questions about his trip. "So why exactly are you going to Phoenix?" Judy asked, and she had decided that she wouldn't stop questioning him until he gave a straight answer.

It wasn't that she assumed that he was a criminal of some sort just because he was a fox, of course—she told herself she would have asked the same of any mammal acting so suspiciously—and his initial answer didn't do much to reassure her that he wasn't plotting something. "Do you know how government contracts are awarded?" Nick asked, slowing down his pace a little and looking over his shoulder at her.

"No," Judy said, and Nick shrugged.

"It's simple, really," he said, "When the queen, or one of her dutifully appointed executors—of the law, I mean, not of mammals—decides that something needs to be done that they can't or won't do themselves, they write up their requirements. Very formal, you know, all sorts of clauses and 'wherefores' and 'as executed' and so on and on."

Nick rolled a paw to emphasize the dullness of the proceedings before breezily continuing. "In a lot of cases, those requirements become contracts that go to the friends of whoever has the ear of the mammal making the decision. That's usually the head of the largest and most powerful guild responsible for whatever needs doing. If a new government building needs pipes installed, that's the Plumbers Guild. If a public square needs to be repaired, that's the Stonemasons Guild. If—"

Judy saw where he was going and cut him off. "If alchemy needs to be done, that's the Alchemist Guild," she said, and the fox nodded approvingly.

"Precisely," he said, "Now, the reason that I'm going to Phoenix with your charming company is because the Alchemists Guild got greedy. Take my advice, Ensign, and never get greedy; that's always what gets a mammal caught."

Judy frowned, unsure of how truthfully he had meant his praise of her—his words had seemed earnest enough, but she somehow felt as though he was mocking her—and where precisely his experience in getting caught came from. "Caught doing what?" she asked.

"Oh, anything, really," Nick said with unnatural cheer, his tail wagging, "In the case of the Alchemist Guild, charging ten times as much for work in Phoenix as they do in the city center."

"So the government is sending you to do alchemy work?" Judy asked, thinking she had at last grasped the reason for his trip.

There was a certain kind of logic to it; if the Alchemist Guild was charging outrageous prices for their work, the queen or one of the mammals under her had stepped in to ensure the work would be done in a more cost-effective manner.

"Sending me? No, no, of course not," Nick said, waving her words away, "I'm going to make a bid on an alchemy project and you're going to make sure I get to Phoenix safe and sound to put my bid in. It'd be a shame if any 'accidents' happened on the way, after all."

He gave her a disarming smile as he spoke, not seeming to take the potential threat of the Alchemist Guild ensuring he couldn't undercut them very seriously. Not that Judy could blame him; from everything she knew of the Alchemist Guild they didn't seem the sort to send assassins. Even if they were, however, it would have been very difficult to sneak up on them; despite having walked for more than an hour the scenery didn't seem to have changed at all. They were still on a dusty and rutted path that led through a blasted wasteland marked only occasionally by glass-filled depressions or pools of stagnant-looking water surrounded by sickly plants, and the remains of the Outer Wall didn't look any closer than they had from the War Gate. It wasn't quite what Judy had had in mind when she joined the City Guard, but it didn't take her long to see that there was still a sort of greater meaning to her work. Saving the city money might not be quite the same as directly saving a mammal's life or even just stopping a pickpocket, but the money that the city saved could surely be put to better use. "What kind of alchemy project?" Judy asked, and it took Nick a moment to respond.

"Water purification," he said at last, "They need someone to transmute what's in the wells into something drinkable."

That, at least, seemed like a noble enough purpose; mammals couldn't live without water, after all, so even if she wasn't doing the actual work of treating it Judy still felt as though it would be making a difference. Assuming, of course, that Nick won the bid, but he certainly seemed rather confident in himself. She thought again that she might have misjudged her traveling companion, and as she forced down her guilt another set of questions occurred to her. "How did you become an alchemist?" she asked.

"Oh, that's a long and boring story," Nick said, "Lots of thick books and studying. Now how about you? What makes a bunny join the City Guard?"

Whatever other skills he had, Nick was remarkably adept at being an audience, and the words seemed to simply flow out of Judy as she told him what it had been like to hold such an unorthodox goal. It occurred to her after the fact that it was the first time anyone had ever simply listened to her explaining her dream of making the city better without dismissing it, and even if the fox—if Nick—had some reason to be friendly and polite beyond the fact that it was simply how he was, it didn't show. Shortly after she had finished explaining how Lord Corazón's push for mammals from species who had not traditionally been allowed to join the City Guard had made her admittance possible, she saw something that made any thoughts of further conversation impossible.

The ground of the Outer Baronies was so flat, excepting the craters that dotted the landscape on either side of the path, that it had been easy to get lulled into the sense that it would continue being so flat all the way until they reached Phoenix. However, what started as a hazy and shimmering patch of darkness soon resolved itself into the single largest depression that Judy had ever seen. Judy had thought that some of the other craters that they had passed on the way, which were large enough to swallow elephants, were large, but they were absolutely nothing compared to what they stood before. Unlike the craters, there was no raised rim of rocks and translucent glass; it was simply an enormous trench, which looked as though it ran all the way from the remains of the Outer Wall to the Middle Wall and had to be more than a hundred feet deep and half a mile wide. Although the end of the trench at the Outer Wall was too far away to make out clearly, they were still close enough to the Middle Wall to see something Judy had never seen before—the foundation of the wall. If she had been asked before, Judy might have said that such an enormous wall would have a correspondingly enormous foundation; her father had been too minor a noble for her to have been excluded from chores on the farmlands such as building and repairing walls. While she knew how the weight of a low wall would gradually make it sink into the softer ground, she never would have guessed that the Middle Wall extended below ground for at least the hundred foot depth of the trench and likely much further.

The trench itself was what really caught her eye, because unlike the milky and dirty-looking lumps of irregular glass that were in the other craters the interior of the trench had a certain geometric elegance to it that struck her as unnatural. Despite the gritty film of dirt that covered much of its surface, Judy could still see that it was faceted as precisely as a jewel with interlinked patterns of triangles and hexagons that glittered. The interior surface was at least ten feet thick and seemed almost perfectly transparent, the dying light of the sun forming glittering rainbows that danced across the yawning expanse. The most spectacular rainbows gleamed off what seemed to be the only way across the chasm, a bridge of the same material as the inside of the trench.

The bridge was about eight feet wide with high sides and looked to be more than a foot thick at its narrowest point, but at the side of the chasm they were standing on—and, it seemed, most likely on the other side—the bridge had complex triangular supports that branch out and anchored it like an enormous spider's web made out of prisms. It was one of the more amazing structures Judy had ever seen in her life, even after her training at the heart of Zootopia and its marvelous mixture of buildings both ancient and new. Although Judy had memorized the simple map that had been provided for her that showed the path from the War Gate to Phoenix—which had seemed rather pointless, since there was only one gently counterclockwise turning path—the map hadn't quite impressed on her the true nature of the Cozamalotl Bridge. Nick had paused at the foot of the bridge, although in his case it did not seem to be awe at the structure; his ears had pressed back against his head and his features were set in a resigned grimace. "I hate this part," he muttered in a voice so low Judy thought he had meant her not to hear it before stepping gingerly onto the bridge.

As Judy had never doubted would be the case, the bridge gave absolutely no protest at his weight, seeming as solid as the nearby Middle Wall. Unlike the wall, however, the bridge was just as transparent as the parts of the trench not covered in grime, and through either some accident of the design or clever foresight the numerous triangular gaps in the side rails of the bridge must have allowed the wind to blow through and keep the surface relatively clean except where the dirt caked up around the supports. It meant that there was at best a hazy film preventing a look down from appearing as though she should be plummeting to her death and at worst gave virtually no sign that there was anything blocking such a fall. Nick was picking his way across slowly, his eyes almost entirely closed and the fur on his tail seeming to stick straight out, and Judy realized the obvious. "Are you afraid of heights?" she called to him.

"What would make you think that?" he asked, and to his credit his voice was remarkably steady, "This is wonderful, really it is."

They kept walking along the bridge, the occasional gust of wind making an eerie and somehow mournful sound come off the trench even as it ruffled Nick's coat and the feathers at Judy's wrists. "This bridge was made with alchemy, right?" she asked, breaking the silence by blurting the first words that came to her head.

"What?" Nick asked, turning to look back at her with a puzzled expression across his features.

"This bridge... This trench... It's alchemy, right?" she said.

Her attempt at distracting him from the crossing was probably obvious to him, but even as he kept walking forward he did answer. "Of course it is. There's not a natural diamond anywhere this large."

"How do you know it's not a natural diamond?" Judy asked, and she wasn't feigning interest to keep him talking; it was amazing to think that a mammal had made such a thing even if the alternative was that someone had found a diamond tens of miles long.

"Besides the size, you mean?" Nick asked, but he was still walking forward, "It's too perfect. No flaws, no inclusions, nothing."

Judy wasn't anything close to an expert on gems, but he did appear to be correct. The bridge was unsettlingly perfect, despite the fact that it had to be centuries old from the uprising that had resulted in the Outer Baronies being laid to waste. "It's easy making something perfect with alchemy," Nick continued, "It's the flaws that are tricky."

"That sounds like counterfeiting," Judy said, and Nick actually laughed.

"Well, I wouldn't know," Nick said, and for the first time since they had gotten on the bridge his voice had a different quality to it than a forced calm ruined only by a slight edge.

He was, Judy realized, teasing her, since he continued, with one paw raised, "You have my solemn oath, Ensign Carrots, that I am not a counterfeiter."

"I told you not to call me that," Judy replied, but there was no heat in her words.

"Did you?" Nick asked, "It must have slipped my mind."

Judy could only shake her head as they crossed the rest of the distance to the far side of the chasm. Nick was, she thought, truly an unusual fox.

* * *

**Author's Notes:**

As CorvidaeHakubi rather shrewdly guessed from the last chapter, there are different kinds of torcs; as is touched upon in this chapter, the ones worn by City Guards do not react to injuries that they cause to other mammals, which would otherwise make subduing a suspect rather difficult. Additionally, the effective radius of the torcs is limited to everything inside the Middle Wall, which does cover virtually every mammal living in this version of Zootopia as there isn't much in the Outer Baronies. I've been trying to establish the rules, so to speak, of this setting in such a way that they come out naturally through the course of the story rather than simply dumping them all at once; hopefully it's working as a logical progression.

What Nick describes as the usual state of government contracts in this setting is what would typically be called cronyism or no-bid contracts in the present era. Cronyism isn't exactly uncommon in non-democratic societies (and certainly isn't unheard of in democratic ones, either), and historically guilds were formed in part to take advantage of having the ear of power. One of the simplest ways of ensuring steady work, after all, is to ensure that your group is the only one capable of doing it, which can take many forms in how it's actually executed. Stonemasonry is the real profession of working with stone, and is one of the oldest professions. Although plumbing may seem to be rather modern, several ancient societies had sophisticated plumbing systems, and the word "plumber" is actually derived from the Latin word "plumbum," meaning "lead," due to the use of lead in constructing piping by the ancient Romans.

The word "cozamalotl" means "rainbow," which seemed apropos for a bridge made out of diamond. One of the things I enjoyed about this setting was thinking up different ways that the ability to transmute matter via alchemy could be used practically. Although in the real world it is possible to create diamonds synthetically (they are, after all, just a precise arrangement of carbon atoms into a regular cubical crystal structure) creating a single diamond of the size described here would be impossible with modern techniques. On the other hand, Nick isn't right about there not being enormous natural diamonds. Arthur C. Clarke suggested that the core of Jupiter might consist of a massive diamond larger than the Earth, and while he may not be correct it is known that the white dwarf star BPM 37093 (located about 50 lightyears away from Earth) has a core of crystallized carbon about the size of the Earth's moon.

The use of the word "counterclockwise" to indicate the direction that Judy and Nick are traveling indicates both that it isn't a straight line path from the War Gate to Phoenix but rather a curving arc, and also suggests that there are clocks in this setting. Although there are many older forms of clocks (such as hourglasses), mechanical clocks were first developed around the year 1300; considering this story is based around two societies that existed in the 1500s and then have developed together for quite some time afterwards, I thought clockwork was a plausible part of the setting.

As always, thanks for reading! I'd love to know what you thought.


	4. Chapter 4

The princess had insisted—and no one had dared to say otherwise—that Bogo be treated by her own personal alchemist. Although Bogo's own concerns were for the continued safety of both the princess and the queen, blood from his pierced shoulder had already soaked through his quilted tunic and was beginning to trickle down his leg, so he left his own protest unvoiced and sat down at the massive table that dominated the council room. The pain from the wound throbbed with every beat of his heart but he did his best not to show it, remaining rigidly upright as reports came in from throughout the palace and he waited for the alchemist's arrival. Mercifully, the three senior members of the council—Cerdo, Corazón, and Cencerro—had apparently been too stunned by the attack to protest being ushered out of the room; the last thing he needed was one or more of them sniping at each other or at him for political points while he tried to think.

The news was, unfortunately, exactly as he had feared: there was absolutely no sign of how the llama, whose crumpled body still rested on the floor in the middle of a slowly spreading red puddle, had made it into the palace or past the numerous guards who should have at least seen him. It was one of the reasons that Bogo absolutely despised the palace; to someone who had never seen it before it was awe-inspiring, with grandly vaulted ceilings, elaborate carvings and wall-hangings, and countless rooms and halls, but to the mammals who had to guard it the palace was an absolute nightmare. Centuries of building and remodeling at the whims of generations of the royal family meant there were long-forgotten or bricked over passages and rooms that were still occasionally accessible, and the protruding stonemasonry that made the building so elegant meant that even the familiar and well-used halls had blind spots even a fairly large mammal could hide in, to say nothing of the sharp corners an assassin might lurk behind.

Bogo's gloomy thoughts were interrupted by a rap at the door to the council room, which was remarkably more or less intact despite the massive crack that had formed from the force with which it had hit the wall. The powdery fragments that had fallen off the door and the wall formed a gritty mess across the entryway with the marks of paws and hooves standing out distinctively. The princess gave a little start at the knock, as she had on each occasion someone had requested entry since the failed attack. The queen showed no outward reaction, but she had far more experience controlling her features than her daughter. Still, Bogo knew her well enough to know that beneath her calm exterior, sitting at the princess's side and stroking her oddly woolly fur, she was afraid. Her hoof trembled ever so slightly and her mouth was a thin and rigid slash across her face as she nodded at Bogo.

"Pass phrase," one of the four mammals now standing guard just inside the council room called through the thick door.

After the llama's attack using incredibly powerful magic, Bogo wasn't taking any chances that the would-be assassin didn't have confederates that might try striking again. If it wasn't for the design of the hallways—and Bogo cursed the architects who had thought that alcoves and protruding pillars were worth the danger they caused—he would have insisted on moving the queen and princess, but the route to any other room seemed hideously vulnerable.  _I'm going to insist every single corridor in this gods-forsaken palace is plastered over until there's_ nothing _to hide behind_ , he thought to himself before returning his attention to the response that came from the other side.

"Acta deos numquam mortalia fallunt," a male voice replied, stumbling slightly over the unfamiliar words of the dead language.

Although Bogo recognized the voice, he let out a breath he hadn't realized he had been holding once the guard reached the end of the pass phrase. Although the City Guard didn't carry them, he had heard of quauhxicallis made from certain birds that allowed the user to perfectly mimic voices. Since neither blood magic nor alchemy could—to the best of his knowledge—allow a mammal to read the thoughts of another and pluck a code from someone's mind, he gave a brusque nod to the guards at the door. After they first opened it a crack and verified the identity of the mammals trying to get in the door was opened the rest of the way and quickly shut after a rather peculiar pair.

One was Jaime of the Tecuani Barony, a stolid jaguar and one of Bogo's most trusted captains. The other was a mouse perched atop a large and apparently quite heavy wooden box that the jaguar was carefully carrying with both paws who Bogo recognized by sight as Princess Isabel's personal alchemist although he had never formally met the mammal. Even if he had never seen the mouse before, the fact that he was an alchemist would have been obvious; although the torc around his neck wouldn't have even made its way around Bogo's smallest finger and the ouroboros on it was consequently too tiny to see from across the room, the mouse was wearing the most ostentatious robes he had ever seen.

The mouse, who looked to be about forty with the beginning of a gut, had draped himself in midnight blue silk so covered with silver embroidery that it looked almost as stiff as Bogo's silver breastplate, and while the arcane symbols were impossible to make out they glowed with their own light. "Your highness," he squeaked in his high-pitched little voice at first the queen and then the princess as he bowed to each in turn.

"Tomas!" the princess said, her features brightening as she looked fondly at the little alchemist.

"Are you well, Princess Isabel?" the mouse asked, bowing again, "Were you injured?"

Tomas had apparently not paid any notice to Bogo, and the princess quickly waved the mouse's concerns away. "It's Captain General Bogo," she said, "He's been stabbed."

"Oh my!" Tomas said, bringing a tiny paw to his mouth as he turned at last and took Bogo in.

"Captain, bring me over at once," he ordered Jaime—rather needlessly, since the jaguar was already walking over to where Bogo sat.

Jamie set the wooden box down on the table with exquisite delicacy, but the mouse's features still darkened into a scowl. "Careful!" he admonished, "There are powers beyond your ken at work in this box."

It was a testament to Jamie's professionalism that he didn't give Tomas the evil eye behind his back but simply dipped his head. "My apologies," Jamie said in a carefully neutral voice and he turned to leave.

"Where do you suppose you're going?" Tomas asked, tapping an impatient foot before descending down a tiny set of stairs built into the side of his box and jumping to the tabletop with surprising grace for a mammal wearing such cumbersome clothes, "Open the case!"

Jamie did as he was instructed, revealing a dizzying array of glass vials of varying sizes and strange symbols etched into the cunningly made drawers that folded outwards as the lid was opened. Although some of the vials were about the size of Bogo's fingers, Tomas went to one that was so small it might not have been visible had it not been glowing with its own light. Unlike alchemical torches or the embroidery on the alchemist's robes, which glowed a pale silvery white, the little vial burned a fiery red almost too bright to look directly at. Tomas lifted the vial with both paws and held it aloft. "Behold the complete philosopher's stone," he intoned, although his solemnity was somewhat ruined by his squeaky voice, "The magnum opus of the Alchemist Guild, my proof of mastery over the very elements, the—"

"Tomas," Princess Isabel interrupted, "Captain General Bogo is bleeding a lot. Could you..."

She trailed off as she rolled a paw, signaling the mouse to get on with actually performing the treatment, and Tomas's pompous nature evaporated. "My apologies," he mumbled, kicking at the table sheepishly as his tail drooped, "Captain General Bogo, could you please remove your armor and tunic?"

The arm that had been stabbed was clumsy and numb as Bogo unbuckled his breastplate and set it aside, and pulling his tunic off was little better. By the time he was done, Jamie was standing at Bogo's side, Tomas balanced atop his palm-up paws and looking at the injury gravely. "A little closer, please," Tomas told Jamie, who dutifully moved the mouse closer to the injury. The little alchemist pulled a stopper too small to see off the glowing vial and then tipped its contents into the wound. The contents didn't seem to be liquid or a single solid, but were rather like a few dozen grains of sand as they tumbled out of the vial. The instant the first of the tiny philosopher's stones reached Bogo's injury, a sensation he couldn't describe came over him.

Bogo had never before been treated with a complete philosopher's stone, just incomplete ones. Privately, he had long-suspected that the only difference between the two was that incomplete stones were silvery-white and the Alchemist Guild only made red "complete" stones so as to boast that they had something that no one else knew how to make, but that suspicion instantly vanished. Whereas an incomplete stone used to treat an injury just tingled mildly as it slowly helped the body heal and kept infection at bay, the complete stone somehow burned and froze at the same time. It was an impossible combination of contradictions, the stones somehow feeling both red-hot and bitterly cold, liquid and solid, impossibly heavy and light as a breeze. Bogo grit his teeth against the feeling, which seemed to only be intensifying as it worked its way deeper and deeper into his arm. For a moment, he could feel his veins and arteries alive with that unnatural sensation before it stopped so suddenly it was like covering a torch.

The wound that had been in his shoulder was gone. It didn't look as though it had healed; it was simply gone, with nothing to indicate that there had ever been an injury in the first place. There was no scar and even Bogo's fur looked normal. "How does it feel?" Tomas asked, looking up at Bogo expectantly.

Bogo flexed his arm once, the muscles moving smoothly and without so much as a hint of pain. "It's healed," he said, "Thank you."

Princess Isabel applauded enthusiastically from where she sat, and Tomas gave a little bow. "That was wonderful," she cried, and Tomas smiled.

"It is my pleasure," he said.

"It was very well done indeed," the queen said, and she was looking at the mouse rather fondly.

Evidently neither the princess nor the queen was put off by the alchemist's arrogance, but Bogo supposed the queen, at least, had reason to be fond of him. Tomas had, after all, been one of the mammals who had enabled the queen to become pregnant with a chimera, and whatever his faults did seem to care deeply for the princess's well-being. "Close my case, please," Tomas said, turning up to Jamie, but before the jaguar could comply Bogo spoke.

"Could you examine our would-be assassin?" he said, and Tomas seemed surprised at the question.

"I beg your pardon?" the little mouse said, "I'm an alchemist, not a blood magician. I don't know anything about quauhxicallis—except, of course, that pure alchemy is far superior to anything as crude as blood."

He gave a disdainful little sniff, but Bogo wasn't willing to accept anything less than full cooperation. "That llama moved faster than anything I've ever seen," he said bluntly, pointing at the corpse.

A wall hanging had been draped over the body, but it was still incredibly obvious what it was. "I want to know why."

"I'm afraid I can't help," Tomas insisted.

"Do you mean that there's something alchemy can't do that blood magic can?" the queen asked, looking across the table at the mouse with a thoughtful expression on her face.

"Blood magic has its uses," Tomas said, and it looked as though every word cost him great effort.

"The captain general is right," the queen continued, "I've never seen a mammal using a quauhxicalli move so quickly."

"I suppose I could look," Tomas said, "But you can't expect anything; it's likely to be an advanced quauhxicalli."

"Or perhaps something new done with alchemy?" the queen suggested.

"Perhaps," the mouse allowed.

After an examination of nearly half-an-hour—with the queen deliberating facing the other way with the princess as she tried to engage her daughter in normal conversation—the little alchemist finally looked up from his work. Jamie had patiently done everything Tomas had asked, gingerly moving the body around and even removing what was left of the llama's torc; the tin it was made out of had been badly mangled by the impact with the floor and the arcane symbols etched into it had gone dark. Bogo was glad for the distraction, because even after a thorough search of every known entrance to the palace and interviews with every mammal who had been near those entrances, no one had seen the llama before he burst into the council chamber. Increasingly ridiculous ideas—perhaps the llama had used a quauhxicalli that had rendered him invisible or allowed him to fly through an upper window, or some sort of alchemy had completely altered his appearance—had begun to fill Bogo's head and even the more sensible suggestions like the llama smuggling himself in with a delivery didn't seem possible.

"However he did it, it wasn't through alchemy," Tomas reported.

Blood had stained the hems of his robes, but he didn't seem to have noticed. Once he had agreed to actually look, he seemed to have done his best, sometimes calling for Jamie to retrieve something from his box or pour a vial. "Otherwise, all I can say is that the alchemical function of his torc looks completely normal. What's left of it, at least."

Bogo frowned, but he wasn't surprised. Torcs were incredibly complicated pieces of magic that relied on a combination of blood magic and alchemy, and tampering with them was supposed to be impossible. At any rate, even if the llama had tried to alter his torc it had obviously failed—his had made him suffer the same wound he had inflicted on Bogo, and from what he could remember the llama hadn't seemed surprised about it. In fact, the llama had seemed to be filled with nothing but hate and anger and he had clearly been willing to try assassinating the princess and die in the process. Even if he had somehow obtained one of the City Guard's torcs, it wasn't as though he would have been able to kill the princess without dying himself; the torc she wore would retaliate against any mammal who hurt her no matter what sort of torc they wore. Besides, the quauhxicalli he must have used had clearly been ripping his body apart from the strain it caused. Bogo had never seen anything like it, but...

"The city appreciates your service," Bogo said, all but automatically, for his thoughts had gone elsewhere.

"Get an expert on quauhxicallis to examine the body," he told Jamie as the jaguar scooped up Tomas and the alchemist's box.

Bogo was barely paying attention as the captain nodded crisply and let himself out of the room, because there was the beginning of an idea forming inside his head.

Whoever had masterminded the attempted assassination, it was clear that they had significant resources and access to powerful magic. The motive was more difficult to guess, but there was a certain former crime lord who had it all—money, quauhxicallis, and what was likely a powerful grudge. True, the Black Paw had never demonstrated access to quauhxicallis quite as potent as the one the llama must have used, but that was no matter. "My queen," Bogo said, "I need to go to the dungeons."

Queen Lana turned her chair around; she had stayed facing the other direction even after Tomas had finished his examination. Princess Isabel turned with her mother, and Bogo saw that the queen was still stroking her daughter's fur with one trembling hoof. "You think you know who tried to kill my daughter?" she asked.

"I have an idea of who had the means to do it," Bogo replied.

"Good," the queen said, and her voice was cold and hard, "You have my permission to do anything you need to do. Anything. Do you understand?"

"I understand," Bogo replied quietly.

It was, Bogo realized, not fear that made the queen's hoof shake. It was anger.

* * *

**Author's Notes:**

The phrase "acta deos numquam mortalia fallunt" is Latin for "mortal actions never deceive the gods" and comes from the letters of Ovid, written sometime around the year 8 CE. I've also used Latin in some other parts of this story, since I think it gives some nice flavor to have a dead language generally used only in older works; I think it helps suggest the history of the setting, particularly in contrast to the occasional word in Nahuatl that suggests that language isn't really spoken any more either.

The reference to quauhxicallis that allow someone to perfectly mimic a voice is inspired by lyrebirds, which are incredible mimics. There are actually a fair number of birds that can imitate human speech, including parrots, but even crows can learn to repeat words.

City Guard member Jaime is a jaguar and comes from the Tecuani Barony, which is named after the Nahuatl word for "jaguar." This has come up a few times before, but not everyone in this setting has a family name per se. Some mammals do, but others use the name of the barony they come from in the place of it. As was the case for Judy, this indicates being a member of the family that rules said barony, although not necessarily any claim to ruling it.

Although eye-rolling has been documented as a gesture in use since the 16th century, its use as a sort of dismissive gesture didn't become common until about the 1950s. Before then, it was most frequently used during flirting to indicate interest. Based on the historical facts that influenced this story, I therefore decided to go with the more specific evil eye, which dates back at least 2000 years.

The creation of the philosopher's stone was the goal of most alchemists; the pursuit of this goal was referred to as the magnum opus (literally the great work). Alchemy was the precursor to modern chemistry, and as such is now a discredited pseudoscience, but alchemists still made a number of advances in chemistry in their efforts to create a substance that could transmute base metals into gold and create an all-healing elixir that could grant eternal life. In fact, the word "elixir" is derived from the Arabic word "al-iksir," which was used by 8th century Muslim alchemists to describe the philosopher's stone.

Although the supposed physical properties of the philosopher's stone vary somewhat depending on the source, I went with some of the more common ones: a philosopher's stone is red in color and quite dense. Some alchemists believed that there were two forms of a philosopher's stone; the incomplete form, which is white in color, could transmute metals into silver, and the complete form, which is red in color, that can transmute metals into gold. I decided to go with this version of the stone, where the creation of complete philosopher's stones is a jealously guarded secret of the Alchemist's Guild. The incomplete form of the stone is, however, responsible for the alchemical torches mentioned in this setting, as one of the uses attributed to the philosopher's stone is its ability to create eternally burning lamps.

As is suggested in this chapter, I imagine incomplete philosopher's stones to allow healing to proceed more quickly than it would unaided, but they can't simply fix any wound or cure any disease the way complete stones can.

This chapter goes into a little more detail on torcs, revealing that they combine blood magic and alchemy in order to function and that the torcs worn by the royal family are a step above the ones worn by the City Guard; a member of the City Guard couldn't simply murder a royal the way they theoretically could murder anyone else.

As always, thanks for reading! I'd love to know what you thought.


	5. Chapter 5

Judy called for a stop once the sun had sunk below the crumbling ruins of the Outer Wall on the horizon, the fading light of day making their shadows stretch strangely across the blasted landscape. Although she hadn't quite spent an entire day traveling with Nick, as she had reached the Middle Wall close to mid-morning, she was utterly exhausted. Judy had traveled through the night the previous day to arrive so early, and being tired just seemed to make her pack grow heavier and heavier with each step.

It was, therefore, mildly irritating that her companion didn't seem especially bothered by the much larger and significantly heavier looking pack that he carried; quite the contrary, he had grown cheerier as the day wore on. Upon hearing the places she had gone in the city center during her training, he had clutched at his chest in mock despair, gently chiding her for her almost perfectly single-minded focus on joining the City Guard. Judy knew that he was, without a doubt, teasing her, but she couldn't deny that she had wished to see the sites he described. She had only ever passed the Royal Palace once, and that at night, so while the building's exterior had been lit up with the silvery glow of alchemical torches she hadn't been able to see anything of the grounds. The moat that surrounded the palace, and the vast gardens that surrounded the moat, were said to have representative examples of landscaping and plant life from each of the districts that made up the city-state, from lush rain forest to barren desert, and Nick had a talent for describing what she had missed.

It was pleasant to imagine the grandeur of the city center of which she had seen so little, particularly because the wastelands didn't offer much in the way of interesting sights once the Cozamalotl Bridge was behind their backs. The path had started curving towards the remains of the Outer Wall, but otherwise what surrounded them remained little more than the occasional strange glass-filled crater or pool of water surrounded by withered plants. It gave Judy the unpleasant impression that they had traveled no distance at all, that if she looked behind herself (and more than once, she had fought an irrational dread when she did so) the Middle Wall would be no more than a hundred or so feet away. It was receding, though, the War Gate's austere opening on the far side of the wall fading gradually in sharpness and detail until it was a gray smudge no more remarkable than the much more elaborately carved opening was when viewed from her family's estate.

As they set up their camp, Judy reflected that it was perhaps that similarity that made the wastelands so eerie. When she looked ahead to horizon and saw dozens of miles of bleak, dead, and pock-marked flatness between her and the remains of the Outer Wall, it was like a nightmare in which the comfort and safety of the lushly green Tochtli Barony and the seemingly impenetrable wall that ran around it had been stripped away. It was visceral proof that the same thing might happen to her home and everyone she loved if the city-state descended into the madness of an apocalyptic civil war once more.

Judy shook the thought away, touching the familiar smooth metal of her torc as she did so. It had been centuries since the last true civil war, and even if it hadn't been, torcs made any such fight impossible. If Nick hadn't been beyond the Middle Wall he wouldn't have even been able to take his own torc off, and the magic of the torcs worked just as well against someone who wasn't wearing one as someone who was. No threat, whether it came from inside the city's walls or beyond them, could possibly hope to succeed in conquering Zootopia, and Judy told herself it was silly to dwell on such gloomy thoughts. The entire time she had spent in training for the City Guard mammals had said that rabbits were too emotional, too weak in constitution and body, and the absolute last thing she would ever do was give anyone an opportunity to say she was proof of it. She had pushed herself hard, harder than any of the other cadets, and when she stood back to take in her perfectly erected tent it was one such example of how seriously she had taken her training.

While she had been thinking to herself and putting up her small tent, Nick had been assembling one himself, although not quite as quickly. As he finished, Judy couldn't help but ask, "Couldn't you just make yourself something with alchemy?"

Nick chuckled as he turned away from his completed tent, a half-smile across his face. "I could," he said.

"Why don't you?" Judy asked.

He paused a moment before answering. There wasn't anything that would burn around their campsite, and it wasn't particularly cold, so rather than trying to build a fire Judy had simply set up an alchemical torch, which lit up the surrounding area with a dreamy quality almost like moonlight but much brighter. In the steady and silvery glow Nick looked almost as though he was made out of something as intangible as a spider's web, his fur rippling in the occasional breeze. "You have a quauhxicalli to make you as fast as a cheetah," he said, "Why aren't we just running all the way to Phoenix?"

Judy's answer was almost immediate. "Quauhxicallis are too expensive to waste," she said, and it was one of the points the academy had drilled into all of the cadets over and over again.

Even the cheapest quauhxicalli was worth more than she earned in a week, and some of the more expensive ones—which as an ensign she had not been entrusted with—were worth more than she earned in a year. "Besides," she added, "Even a cheetah couldn't run all the way to Phoenix without stopping."

Nick's smile broadened a degree. "Here's a little secret the Alchemist Guild wouldn't want you to know," he said, and his tone was conspiratorial, just barely above a whisper.

Judy found herself, despite her sensitive hearing, edging a little closer. "Alchemy's tiring," Nick said, "If I made a nice little hut with a soft bed—and you'd probably want one for yourself, I'm sure—you wouldn't be able to get me up in the morning."

He laughed as he settled back, resting one palm against the ground as he examined the claws on his other paw. "Of course, if you want to  _see_  what alchemy being performed is like..." he said, trailing off.

Although the look of good humor hadn't left his face, his green eyes sparkling in the light of the alchemical torch, Judy knew that he had seen completely through her. On the rare occasions when she had seen alchemists in the city-state's center, they hadn't actually performed any acts of alchemy; she had spotted one leaving a used book store and another entering a restaurant that looked so expensive even an entire garrison of the City Guard pooling their wages couldn't have afforded a single meal.

When Nick looked up from his claws, there was a slyly shrewd look on his face. "Maybe you think I  _can't_  perform alchemy?"

Judy could feel her ears burning as he, once again, seemed to see exactly what she had been thinking. It had occurred to her—and she had insisted to herself that it wasn't simply because he was a fox—that perhaps Nick wasn't actually an alchemist. He didn't dress like one and the torc he had tucked away into his coat didn't have any kind of guild symbol on it. He had as much as admitted that he wasn't a member of the Alchemist Guild, and Judy had never heard of any mammal, other than ones who had lived centuries ago, who had performed alchemy and wasn't a member. And, if it was taken into account that he was a fox—only as a relevant point in that he couldn't have been a member of the Alchemist Guild at some point before getting kicked out—wasn't it far more likely that he would have learned blood magic if he knew any kind of magic at all? Every single famous alchemist Judy had ever heard of had been a prey mammal, and every single famous blood magician—including Oztoyehuatl the Betrayer himself—had been a predator. If Nick was undertaking some sort of elaborate ruse, unlikely though it appeared, it was her duty as a member of the City Guard to put a stop to it.

"No, no, it's not like that at all," Judy blurted, waving her arms frantically, "I'm sure you're really an alchemist; you seem—that is—you are really clever for a... But—but as a fox I'm sure a lot of mammals doubt you, and—and I know what that's... That is..."

He was silently regarding her, his amusement evident, and Judy lamely finished, "I would. But not if it's too tiring for you, or if you don't feel like it—you don't have to prove it to me or anything..."

"Well, how can I let your curiosity go unsatisfied?" Nick asked cheerfully, "It is very impressive, after all. Do you have a copper piece?"

Grateful that he didn't seem to be holding her interest against her, Judy dug into one of the little pouches on her belt next to her little collection of the most basic quauhxicallis. She hadn't brought much money with her for their trip, as she was relying on being able to use the City Guard's garrison in Phoenix for food and shelter once they arrived, but she did have a few silver and copper coins. She dug out one of the fat copper coins, with its side-profile view of Queen Lana III on one side and glowing silvery alchemical marks on the other, and gave it to Nick.

"Perfect," Nick said, palming the coin, "Now here's the boring part."

Despite his words, Judy found herself quite interested in his preparations since she had never seen anyone do anything similar. He didn't seem to be doing anything more than drawing lines in the gritty dust off the path away from their tents and the alchemical torch. With the aid of a string with weights at the end he completed a perfect circle about five feet in diameter and then, with surprising deftness, a square with corners that precisely touched the circle's perimeter. Once the lines were drawn he rummaged through his pack and Judy craned her neck to see what he had packed. She caught a glimpse of the contents of his pack—which seemed to be almost entirely composed of glass vials carefully swaddled in cloth, a couple of which glowed with the same silvery-white light as an alchemical torch—before he produced a candle and a rather mundane looking vial full of what looked like water. The vial of water he placed on one of the intersections between the square and the circle, and the candle on another. Rather disappointingly, since Judy had been anticipating some demonstration of his own magical powers, he lit the candle with what looked like an ordinary match that glowed briefly as he snapped it and the alchemy that imbued it engaged. At one of the remaining corners he carefully placed a pawful of dirt, and then he positioned the coin at the center of the circle and sat beside it with his paws on either side of it.

He sat silent a moment, his eyes closed, and a gentle breeze blew across the wasteland, bringing with it the smell of some rotting plant, just as Judy was about to ask what he was waiting for. She didn't know enough about alchemy to know what he was doing, but at the instant the breeze blew past the very quality of the air itself seemed to change. Judy could feel her fur standing on end, the way it had when a severe thunderstorm was about to roll through Tochtli Barony, and the mildly unpleasant smell of dusty grit and sickly plants she had come to associate with the wasteland was overpowered by the same sort of sharpness she associated with a lightning strike. She thought that she could hear something, near the very limits of her hearing, something high-pitched and somehow both distant and near.

Nick was still unmoving, his fingers splayed on either side of the coin, and as she watched the coin  _changed_. The copper grew even duller, but it wasn't as though it was simply getting darker. Rather, even though it was well within the light of the alchemical torch it seemed simply to grow dimmer, blackening as it reflected less and less light until it was so perfectly black that it looked like a fathomless hole. An instant later, however, the coin began burning with its own inner light, and the transition was so sudden that Judy threw a paw over her eyes, which had dazzling spots dancing in front of them. The coin was brighter even than the alchemical torch, throwing Nick's fur into such sharp relief that he seemed to burn as though he was made of fire, and Judy saw that his own eyes were clenched tightly shut.

The sudden light from the coin faded gradually, the pure whiteness dimming as it took on a sort of jaundiced quality that made Nick look sickly in its light, but throughout it all the fox had remained motionless. The yellow light the coin produced turned orange as it faded out, and for a matter of seconds the coin glowed red like an ember before the light went out of it. Judy stared for a second, blinking the spots out of her eyes, and she saw how the coin had changed. It no longer had the dull gleam of a well-worn piece of copper; it was brilliantly and unmistakably made of gold. "Pretty good, wouldn't you say?" Nick asked, moving at last as he opened his eyes and scooped up the coin.

His voice had a certain breathless quality to it, as though he had just sprinted a fair distance, and he walked over to where Judy had stood to watch and dropped the coin into her paw. It was not, she realized, only what the coin was made of that had changed. It was noticeably smaller than it had been, although it seemed to weigh about the same in her paw, and the alchemical marks that had glowed on the back of the coin were now nothing more than engravings. Otherwise, the coin looked exactly as it had, from the profile of Queen Lana III to the dents and scuffs that had been in it before Judy had given it to Nick. "It's amazing!" Judy said, staring down at the coin, and she was awed at the magic that her companion had worked with such seeming casualness.

"You don't have to sound so surprised," Nick said, although he was smiling slightly, "I told you I was an alchemist."

"You're incredible," Judy said as she turned the coin over in her paw, looking at both sides, "You didn't even use a philosopher's stone!"

Nick modestly kicked at the ground. "A philosopher's stone does all the work for you, you know," he said, "It's not much of a demonstration when anyone could transmute any metal just by touching it with a philosopher's stone."

Judy nodded, supposing he was right although she had never seen a demonstration of either a complete or incomplete philosopher's stone for transmuting metals. Complete stones were more valuable than even the most expensive quauhxicalli and she supposed Nick's demonstration indicated why no one bothered using incomplete stones to transmute metal into silver; if an alchemist didn't need a stone to do the transmutation of metals into gold or silver it was a waste to use something that could be better used to help mammals recover from injuries or illnesses. "You know how to make a philosopher's stone?" Judy asked as the implication of what Nick had just said struck her.

She wondered if he had managed to achieve what only the absolute masters of the Alchemist Guild had, and was therefore somewhat disappointed by his response. "Can I make an  _incomplete_ philosopher's stone? Yes, yes I can," Nick said, which Judy supposed was still impressive in its own right.

Besides, if he did know the secret to making complete philosopher's stones Judy doubted he'd be spending his time bidding on contracts at the very outskirts of Zootopia; he could have likely leveraged his knowledge into enough money to buy his way into the ranks of the nobility, and Judy turned her focus back to the transmuted coin. From the way that it had glowed at the end she had expected it to be hot, but it was if anything somewhat cold to the touch, as though it had been briefly dipped in ice. When Judy had the coin's reverse facing up, with the now inactive alchemical marks the mint had put on it, Nick added, "I did tell you I wasn't a counterfeiter."

Judy laughed; he was right that the coin would never be mistaken for an actual gold piece, as it was both far too small and of the wrong design. Of course, she realized with a frown, it was now also worthless as a copper piece. "Tell you what, though," Nick added, "Since I've ruined your coin, why don't I turn it into something useful?"

He plucked the coin from her paw and then scratched at his chin. "You have a carrot in that bag of yours, right?" he asked, nodding in the direction of where Judy had left it.

"How did you—" Judy began to ask, but Nick waved the question away.

"I could smell it," he said simply, and she supposed his sense of smell had to be rather impressive.

Judy had, in fact, brought a few carrots along as a treat; when she had been packing her bag she had been unable to resist. Curious as to what Nick would do with it, she brought him one of the carrots, which had a wonderful leafy green top—the best part, in Judy's opinion—and gave it to him. "I promise," Nick said solemnly, "That you'll still be able to eat this when I'm done if you wash it first. Or don't mind some dirt."

Before she could say anything, he tied a loose knot into the stem of the carrot and then placed it near the center of the square he had drawn in the dirt. With his weighted string and a straightedge he divided the square in half and then placed the golden coin in the half not occupied by the carrot. He then drew a complicated series of lines connecting the coin and the carrot, and once more placed his paws against the ground. The items he had placed at the corners of the square were still there, the stub of a candle still burning, and he closed his eyes again.

As before, the very quality of the air seemed to change, and the coin once more went through the same changes in color. The carrot seemed unaffected, however, and the coin didn't just change in color as Nick did whatever it was that alchemists did to change things. At first it was difficult to tell, as the change in the coin's shape seemed to begin just as it started glowing too brightly to look at, but it was no longer a flat disc; it changed itself into a cylindrical shape in a way Judy felt she couldn't adequately describe. It didn't look as though the coin was flowing like molten metal or folding like a piece of paper, but rather was somehow doing both and neither. The spots in Judy's eyes prevented her from seeing what the coin had turned into until Nick had plucked both the former coin and the carrot from the ground and placed them in her paws.

The carrot looked exactly as it had, but the coin had turned into—"A carrot," Nick said, sounding more out of breath than he had after his first transmutation, "Tell me that's not impressive."

It wasn't actually a real carrot, but rather a little golden one that was, Judy realized, a perfect copy at a much smaller scale. The golden carrot had the same irregularities and striations as the real carrot, and its golden leaves were so exquisitely detailed that she could just make out the delicate veins. Nick had, somehow, used the real carrot as a template and turned the gold coin into a miniature copy. He was right that it was impressive; Judy didn't think even the finest rodent craftsmammals would have been able to make a golden carrot so small and so detailed, and it had taken Nick perhaps two or three minutes total. "You can wear it on your torc," Nick said, gesturing at the little loop the knot in the golden carrot's stem formed, "If members of the City Guard are ever off duty, of course."

"Thank you," Judy said, "It's beautiful."

She carefully put the little golden carrot in one of the pouches of her belt. "But did it have to be a carrot?" she asked.

Nick laughed, quirking an eyebrow upwards. "For you, ensign?" he asked, "What else could it be?"

They passed a pleasant dinner together by the light of the alchemical torch, each eating their own rations—Judy didn't know if Nick would have enjoyed her vegetables, but she was sure she wouldn't like his preserved fish—before going their separate ways to their own tents. Nick had claimed to be worn-out by the alchemy he had performed, and it certainly seemed to be true enough; his normally half-lidded eyes had started to droop even more. It was only once Judy was in her own tent, admiring the little golden carrot, that another thought struck her. In Tochtli Barony, a buck would propose to a doe by giving her an ornament for her torc. Of course, that was really only a tradition within her family, and from what she had seen wasn't common at all in either the city-state's more populated center or any of the other baronies. Nick wouldn't have had any way of knowing, but still...

As Judy's eyes grew heavier, she thought she'd have to bring it up somehow and see how embarrassing he found it. His good-natured teasing couldn't go unanswered, after all, and as she fell asleep, tucked into her bedroll with the golden carrot lightly grasped in one paw, a smile had crossed her face.

* * *

 

**Author's Notes:**

Oztoyehuatl was first mentioned in the first chapter as a fox who lived long before this story started who is famous for being a coward and a traitor, and here we see that he was a blood magician referred to with the epithet “the Betrayer.” This chapter’s indication that, at least to the best of Judy’s knowledge, all alchemists are prey mammals and all blood magicians are predators, also relates to the backstory of this setting, in which an army led by a sheep used alchemy to lay seige to the city and depose a predator emperor. It also highlights how unusual it is for Nick to be an alchemist, although he does demonstrate that he can indeed use alchemy and whatever his motives are he’s not lying about that much.

I tried to continue to incorporate some more world-building for the magic of this setting; quauhxicallis are very expensive and certain ones are not given to low-ranking members of the City Guard.

The fact that the coinage of this version of Zootopia has the face of a living ruler on it is, historically speaking, pretty common. British coins have included the face of the current king or queen for many years now, and it was common in older empires to feature the ruler as well. The US is therefore somewhat unusual in that the US mint will not make any coins or bills featuring a person who is still living. It’s for this reason that the presidential $1 coin series skips from Gerald Ford to Ronald Reagan; since Jimmy Carter is still alive he can’t be featured on a coin.

In this setting, since alchemy is possible, I figured that it didn’t make too much sense for them to be on the gold standard since alchemists could quickly produce vast quantities of it, devaluing the currency. I imagine therefore that this setting uses a fiat currency; the value of coins isn’t fixed to anything and it only has value because the government says that it does and the public trusts it. As an anti-counterfeiting measure, coins in this setting have alchemical engravings to make them difficult to copy in much the same way that modern currency features a wide variety of measures from watermarks to holograms. The coins could theoretically be made out of any metal, but gold, silver, and copper have a long history of being used in coinage and I thought it’d make sense to continue it.

I thought it was a somewhat amusing contrast that Judy is clearly unimpressed with a match that would probably be rather impressive for anyone from our world, since it’s engaged by a self-activating form of alchemy. I think it’s one of the things that can be interesting about a setting with magic—if certain things are common in their world, they simply aren’t impressive any more than the average person in the real world would be impressed by, say, a smartphone or a car.

When I plotted out how the system of alchemy worked in this setting, one of the things I wanted to avoid was simply copying the alchemy system from  _Fullmetal Alchemist_. That setting, based on an alternate version of the early 20 th century in which alchemy actually works, relies on alchemy arrays which are drawn by an alchemist and then activated by touching it and applying will. In that setting, alchemy generally isn’t used to actually transmute materials from one element to another but rather to rearrange the atoms in an object into something else. Even relatively inexperienced alchemists in that setting are capable of manipulating the shape of what they transmute with relative ease, forming barricades, weapons, models, or the like. I’d certainly recommend it, as the series is quite good in my opinion.  

Historical alchemists, however, didn’t really draw magical circles and try to manipulate matter that way. Symbols such as the squared circle, which represents the creation of the philosopher’s stone, were generally understood by alchemists to be metaphorical rather than literal magic; the idea was that the manipulation of matter would generally be done through more mundane methods such as mixing things together. However, it was also common for alchemists to believe that matter was made up of the classical elements as described by Aristotle: earth (which is cold and dry), water (which is cold and wet), air (which is hot and wet), fire (which is hot and dry), and aether (a divine substance outside the categories of warmth and dryness). The thought was that by altering the composition of those five elements within something you could change it. I decided that the way alchemy would work in this story is that the five basic elements would be used to manipulate the balance between warmth and dryness in something to alter its composition, with the alchemist supplying the aether to guide and manipulate the process.

The fire, water, air, and earth used in transmutations are thus really just an aid to the alchemist’s focus, as is the circle; simpler transmutations can be performed with very basic circles while more complicated ones are easier with a more fleshed out focus. Very simple transmutations, such as the match, don’t require an alchemist at all and can be triggered with an action anyone can do, such as snapping it in the case of a match.

The copper coin goes through the four stages commonly associated with alchemical changes by Western alchemists: blackening, whitening, yellowing, and reddening. This changes were sometimes associated with observable pheonomena; some alchemists believed, for example, that the way living things blacken as they rot suggested a beginning to the cycle they wished to start.

Gold has a density of 19.30 grams per cubic centimeter while copper has a density of 8.96 grams per cubic centimeter. As gold is nearly twice as dense as copper, for two objects—one of gold and the other of copper—to have the same mass, the one made of gold would be noticeably smaller if they were worked into the same general shape and were solid.

Rabbits are, of course, widely associated with carrots, although the root part is too high in sugar to be a healthy part of their diet long-term. They can also eat the leaves of a carrot, although whether they would enjoy that more or less than the root is, I suppose, to the rabbit’s preference.

On another note, I tried my hand at creating my own cover art for this story; the results of my attempt can be seen on DeviantArt under the username WANMWAD:

<https://www.deviantart.com/wanmwad/art/Philosopher-s-Stone-767507082?ga_submit_new=10%3A1539044759>

The design is inspired by the squared circle, an alchemical symbol dating to the 17th century consisting of a circle inscribed in a square inscribed in an equilateral triangle inscribed within a circle. The design is said to have symbolized how the four classical elements (air, earth, fire, and water) interplay in the creation of a philosopher's stone. I embellished the design somewhat, but I tried to incorporate elements that alchemists believed in. The center circle was replaced with an ouroboros, the snake eating its own tail; the ouroboros was a classic symbol of alchemy representing the cycle of birth and death. In the interest of full disclosure, I did not draw the serpent but used a public domain image from Wikimedia commons. The symbols at the four corners of the square are the four classic elements previously mentioned, while at the points of the triangle are alchemical symbols that represent what the 16th century alchemist Theophrastus von Hohenheim (also known as Paracelsus) believed humans were made of: mind, body, and spirit, which he thought also corresponded to what all matter had: a combustible element (sulphur), a changeable element (mercury), and a solid element (salt).

The text circling the center is "igne natura renovatur integra," which is Latin for "through fire, nature is reborn whole" and was a phrase used by alchemists as an alternative meaning for the acronym INRI (standing for IESVS NAZARENVS REX IVDÆORVM or Jesus, King of the Jews) said to have been put on the crucifix of Jesus Christ. The leftmost text is "a minore ad maius," Latin for "from the smaller to the greater" and the rightmost text is "a maiore ad minus," Latin for "from the greater to the smaller." The bottom most text is "ordo ab chao," Latin for "out of chaos, comes order." I thought the combination of these three phrases was suggestive of the goals of alchemy to break matter down and remake it into the desired form.

As always, thanks for reading! I’d love to know what you thought.


	6. Chapter 6

Although he was half-tempted to visit the dungeons while still wearing a torn and blood-soaked tunic—perhaps it would put the fear of the gods into the prisoner he wished to visit—Bogo grudgingly visited the armory to change. The irritating thing about politics was that appearances mattered just as much as actions, if not more so. If he was seen looking disheveled as he left the palace, every mammal he passed from guards and servants to nobles and their hangers-on would assume that events were out of his control. That assumption could easily become reality if enough mammals believed it, and so he changed as quickly as he could. The only concession he made to his own comfort was to leave off the cloak of feathers that was his right as a captain general; besides being awkwardly heavy and restricting the cloaks were frustratingly fragile, and the one he had dropped on the floor of the council room would need artisans to repair it. Still, the feathers on the bracelets he wore at his wrists and the embellishments on his torc showed his rank well enough, and the lack of a cloak made the macuahuitl and the sabre he chose to wear on his belt that much more obvious.

When he was satisfied that he would give off the impression he wanted, Bogo set off for one of the palace's exits (despairing slightly at just how many ways in and out of the building there were), and had managed to reach the Hall of Ancestors before being interrupted. The grim look his features seemed to naturally set themselves into tended to be proof enough against mammals frivolously wasting his time, and he had supposed that in light of an attempted assassination he must have looked particularly fearsome indeed, for a number of servants had all but jumped out of his way as if he was radiating a heat too intense to bear. That the mammal who interrupted him was Corazón was, in retrospect, not overly surprising; the lion was if nothing else a consummate professional in the art of finding those in power.

The Hall of Ancestors was an enormous room, and yet also one with very little in the way of free space; it was absolutely full of statues of the former rulers of Zootopia. The walls were covered with elaborately carved iconography of the old emperors and empresses, and some of the statues were even in that old style, the subjects curiously blocky and almost grotesque in their poses. Corazón had knelt in front of one of the largest statues, which was positioned in place of pride where no other statue could hide it, and he rose smoothly as Bogo entered. "Captain General," Corazón said by way of greeting, quite solemnly and seemingly without any surprise at encountering Bogo taking a shortcut, "I was just telling the prince consort that you saved his daughter's life."

Corazón gestured at a statue as he spoke, which depicted the deceased husband of Queen Lana, Princess Isabel's father Fernando the Just. Although the jaguar who had been recreated in stone towered over the other statues, all but the oldest of which showed sheep, it was no trick of the sculptor to make him appear larger or more imposing in death. Fernando had been about the largest jaguar Bogo had ever seen, which had always made the queen appear even shorter than she actually was by comparison. Bogo looked into the impassive stone face of the dead prince consort, which despite the sculptor's best efforts carried only a fraction of the wisdom that had seemed etched into Fernando's features, and then turned to Corazón. The lion's face seemed lined with sorrow, and while Bogo recalled that Fernando had considered Corazón one of his most trusted advisers, it was hard to forget that Corazón had a well-known talent for oration. It was, perhaps, one of the things about Corazón that he liked least; he never knew whether or not the baron actually meant what he said. His words always oozed sincerity and because of that seemed all the more false. Was he truly grieving the loss of a friend, or was it all just a carefully planned charade to get something he wanted out of Bogo?

The captain general didn't care for politics, but that didn't mean he didn't know how the game was played. He stayed silent, trusting that Corazón would continue, and at last the lion did after heaving a theatrical sigh. "It was the worst day of my life when he died," Corazón said, "Yours too, perhaps."

Bogo inclined his head stiffly, still without a word. The prince consort's death had not been fair, nor had it been quick. He had always been a particularly energetic mammal, a devoted husband and an absolutely doting father despite the demands on his time as a judge. Seeing how rapidly he declined after taking ill had been a terrible shock, as his muscles withered away and his fur dulled until he was little more than a wraith unable to do so much as leave his bed. Bogo had been there for all of it, screening each and every blood magician and alchemist selected to treat the prince consort and watching everything they did. After one such treatment, when even a complete philosopher's stone nearly the size of a hummingbird's egg had failed to achieve any improvement, the prince consort had beckoned Bogo over after the alchemist left. "I don't think you need to worry about assassins, Captain General," Fernando had said, and while his voice had been little more than a croaking whisper there had been the ghost of good humor in his eyes, "The tumors are doing quite well on their own."

Bogo had started to voice a protest, but the prince consort had raised a paw, which seemed larger than ever with how thin his arms had become, and spoke again. His voice had been no louder, but there was steel in it. "Let me be clear, Captain General. If— _if_ —someone is responsible for me falling ill, you are to do nothing without absolute proof. Nothing, do you understand? I don't want my legacy to be—"

Fernando had broken into a coughing fit at that point, but the point had been made. Although the prince consort had spent months too feeble to do much besides rest, he had never been stupid, and the tumors that burned his body from the inside out had not touched his mind. The city-state had been a spark away from civil war, all the various factions just waiting for an excuse to battle over old grudges in what the torcs would have made the bloodiest conflict ever fought. The prince consort was largely beloved by the populace, but there were the old families of sheep nobility who resented a jaguar joining the royal family and were likely entirely unappeased by Cencerro's appointment to the Queen's Council. So too were there the prey mammals who could trace their history back to the city-state's founding who thought putting a jaguar in a position of power was a step back towards the days of the emperors and their insatiable demands, and that was leaving aside the more opportunistic predator members of the nobility who were bitter about being overlooked when the queen married.

Similar fears were also, Bogo knew, why the prince consort had refused more radical treatment options; it was possible that the alchemists had been right and cutting out the tumors that had sprouted on his internal organs and in his bones before providing treatment with a complete philosopher's stone might have completely cured him. Then again, if he had died during the surgery public opinion might have turned against the Alchemist Guild. The blood magicians would have likely been happy to lead a whisper campaign against their traditional rivals by calling it deliberate murder, and the thought of the uneasy alliance between the two groups who controlled the very magic that kept Zootopia functioning failing was a sobering one indeed.

"I understand, my liege," Bogo had replied, and in that moment he had never hated politics more.

"Good," the prince consort had said, and he had slumped into his bed, not even his recent treatment enough to give him the strength to go on.

Bogo had turned to leave, considering himself dismissed, and to his surprise Fernando had spoken again. "If I am the victim of more than just poor luck," he said, "Whoever's responsible will go after Lana and Izzy, one way or another. Watch for that, Captain General."

Bogo had turned back to face the prince consort and nodded. "I promise, my liege."

Fernando had nodded weakly in return. "If that happens, Captain General, if someone is trying to claim power..." he said, his already feeble voice trailing off, "Find that mammal and dispose of them in whatever way keeps the peace."

His yellow eyes had been fever bright and his stare so intense that it entirely made up for his rail-thin and wasted appearance, as though he had reclaimed his former vigor through sheer force of will alone. Then his eyes had closed and his breathing had slowed, and Bogo had left the royal bedchamber as quietly as he could manage. It had been the last time he had ever spoken to the prince consort, who had taken a turn for the worse before finally dying, but even after six years Bogo had never forgotten the words. He had done his best to look into every mammal who was in or was moving towards the queen's inner circle; it had taken nearly a year for any male to dare bring up the possibility of the queen re-marrying, but Bogo privately suspected that she never would. The princess was another matter entirely, as she had no siblings, and mammals seemed to feel somewhat bolder in trying to extract an engagement in return for whatever concession the queen demanded.

Through it all Corazón had been a constant presence, and while he had never quite brought up his own son as a suitable match for the princess he had never failed to mention the cub or his achievements. Bogo considered the mammal standing before him, who had remained respectfully silent even as Bogo's own thoughts had drifted to the past, and spoke in a carefully neutral voice. "Worse than the day your wife died?"

Corazón had become a widower about two years ago, and while he had never made any move to suggest he had an interest in marrying the queen—or any other mammal, for that matter—it had not escaped Bogo's notice that the lion was perfectly positioned to do so. The queen trusted his judgement, no matter how soft-hearted it tended to be, and even the princess appreciated his input. If he took any offense at Bogo's implication, he gave no sign of it, his features resolving themselves into a somewhat rueful expression. "Not all political marriages are quite so blessed as that of our queen," he said, "We… tolerated each other."

Bogo grunted, somewhat surprised that Corazón would admit it so baldly, and he wondered if he had encountered an actual moment of genuine vulnerability from the council member. "We both loved our son, and that was enough," Corazón continued, with a slight shrug of his shoulders that was barely visible beneath his thickly embroidered clothes.

"Do you have any idea who might have tried assassinating the princess?" Bogo asked.

He had gotten sick of waiting for Corazón to get to whatever point it was he was building towards, and long experience had taught him that abruptly changing topics occasionally yielded results as the mammal being questioned found themselves caught off-guard. Corazón, however, was apparently a politician through and through, because he didn't seem so much as surprised at the question. "No idea whatsoever, I'm afraid," he said, and Bogo found himself surprised.

He had anticipated that the best cause scenario would have been for Corazón to stumble over his response, to give some indication that he knew more than he would willingly admit, and that the worst case scenario would be for the lion to simply name one or more of his political opponents as a possibility. Some of his surprise must have made it onto his face, because Corazón chuckled and clapped one enormous paw onto Bogo's shoulder. "If I named someone, and your investigation found it couldn't possibly be them, you would only suspect me more, Captain General, wouldn't you?" he said, and he was actually smiling, although there seemed to be something of a warning growl in his voice, "I can promise you I had nothing to do with the attempt, but beyond that… I suppose the question you ought to be asking is who has the most to gain from the princess's death. Are males who could take a wife really your only suspects?"

If the princess died, there would be no heir to the throne upon the queen's death, and the natural possibility was that the queen would be forced to marry and produce another heir. Then again, she might just as easily name someone as her chosen successor; it was a possibility that Bogo had not really considered as a motive until Corazón had implied it, thinking the likely motives to be either revenge or an effort to marry the queen. "They are not," Bogo said, and with one hoof he grabbed Corazón's paw and pulled it off his shoulder, "Thank you. I must be on my way."

"Of course," Corazón said, and gestured towards the door, "But if there is anything I can help you with, anything at all, you must let me know."

Bogo nodded brusquely and continued on his way, resolving to press Corazón further when he was finished with his present business.

* * *

The jail Bogo headed to was positioned well outside the grounds of the palace, and the almost palpable air of despair that it provided was all the more impressive because it had at one time been one of the grandest estates in all of Zootopia. Time and neglect had made the once finely engraved stone of the exterior crumble and become choked out by vines, and the grounds that had once been gardens had been completely leveled and left to nothing more than dirt. The estate itself was three stories tall, entirely made of thick stone blocks, and windows that had once been large and grand had been bricked up into narrow slits with heavy iron bars crossing them, weeping rust stains. The exterior wall that ran around the estate had been made even taller and a number of guard towers had been built, adding to the general impression of control.

As Bogo walked across the grounds, which were empty except for a miserable looking huddle of prisoners off in the distance under the keen eyes of several guards, he passed the only remaining sign of the estate's former owner. Near the entrance, looking rather forlorn on a crumbling marble plinth, was a statue. The statue was centuries old and so weathered that it was barely recognizable as a fox, but Oztoyehuatl the Betrayer's image was still there. Legend had it that the statue actually  _was_  Oztoyehuatl; the story went that as punishment for his treason, alchemists had transmuted his body to stone as slowly as they possibly could, somehow managing to leave him aware but incapable of movement. Sometimes, it was said, the statue would even cry tears of despair. Bogo considered it all nonsense, the sort of story mammals only told each other to frighten themselves. It seemed more likely that Oztoyehuatl's death had come from having his beating heart cut from his chest, as executions had been done in the old days, but the story had a value of its own. No one wanted to go to Oztoyehuatl's Jail, as it was commonly known, and only the worst of the city-state's criminals got sent to it. There were cells designed to nullify any alchemy a prisoner might attempt as well as the far more common and mundane cells built to be completely escape-proof.

Indeed, once Bogo had crossed what had formerly been the grand entrance of the estate, which had only worn marble floors as evidence of its former grandeur, he hit the first barrier to any potential escape. The formerly large and open grand entrance had been divided using walls made using alchemy that ran from floor to ceiling and met each other without so much as a gap; there weren't even doors. The same technique had been used on the highest security cells, which were built in featureless cubes of thick stone that had only the smallest of holes through them for air vents. There simply wasn't any way for a prisoner to escape as there were no holes large enough for them to get through.

Of course, prisoners did need to be fed, and that was where the alchemists on the staff came into play. They would use alchemy to break the perfectly smooth walls to create openings, as one did for Bogo to enter the hallway that led to the cell he was interested in. The alchemist, a deer wearing the rank of a lieutenant on her torc next to the ouroboros that marked her guild membership, fell into step behind him, making absolutely no attempt at conversation. It felt slightly claustrophobic to be walking down the stairs that led into what had been Oztoyehuatl's blood magic laboratories before they had been repurposed and expanded into dungeons and knowing that was no way out. The opening the doe made had been sealed behind Bogo, leaving him to the smooth stone tunnels lit only by the silvery glow of alchemical torches. He walked purposefully towards his destination, passing some of the more mundane cells shut only with heavy doors of thick iron bars, and could feel the eyes of the occupants of those cells upon him as he passed. None of the varied mammals called out, the only sounds remaining the echoing ring of his hooves and the guard's hooves against the polished and reflective stone floor; most of the prisoners seemed too exhausted to do more than sit up on rough cots. Bogo, however, felt no sympathy for them, and from the hard expression on the guard's face he doubted she did either. The mammals they passed were, he knew, all murderers who had taken advantage of the limitations of torcs, as the ones too foolish to work out a way to kill their victim without dying themselves were obviously dead. Some of them had been fiendishly clever, building elaborate and subtle traps that their victims had fallen prey to, and some of them less so, as torcs didn't work against poison. Lesser criminals, such as forgers and thieves, were housed in cells above ground that actually had windows, and they were afforded the privilege of leaving their cells for exercise. The murderers were left to their misery in their cells, which Bogo wasn't sure he considered a mercy the way the queen did; execution would have been kinder.

Still, as he moved deeper and deeper into the dungeons, he supposed that the mammal he was going to see deserved every bit of suffering that could fit into the remainder of his life. It was easily the most secure cell in the entire jail, hidden away behind multiple walls that the deer had to form openings through, and although the prisoner had never been known to use alchemy his cell had still been warded against it, just in case. The glowing array of arcane symbols made Bogo's fur tingle as he stepped over it, and then he was at last standing in front of the cell, nodding at his escort to seal the wall behind him until his conversation was over.

Under other circumstances, Bogo might have found the cell comically oversized; he himself would have been quite capable of fitting into the great cube of thick diamond marred only by the tiny air vents in its sides so small that a single hair would barely fit. A huge number of alchemical torches blazed in the walls of the room the diamond cube was in from just past the barrier that stopped alchemy, banishing all shadows from the cell, and there in the very center was the prisoner, a tiny shrew.

He was dressed in crude clothes of a dull gray, with a lead torc at his neck, and yet when he sat up on his minuscule cot and looked in Bogo's direction he held himself as though he were dressed in the same sort of finery as a noble. The little shrew's eyes were invisible beneath his bushy eyebrows, and he wasn't quite as plump as he had been when he had started his life sentence, but he was unmistakably the mammal who had variously called himself Tlatoani or Big. Bogo knew his real name, though, and he wouldn't give the notorious criminal the satisfaction of using one of his inflated titles. "Alfonso," Bogo said, looking down at the shrew; he wouldn't show him even the modicum of respect by bending down to get closer to the shrew's level, "We need to talk."

* * *

**Author's Notes:**

A macuahuitl is an unusual sort of weapon that consists of what looks a bit like a wooden cricket bat with pieces of obsidian set along its edge with gaps between them. Well-made macuahuitl used expertly seated and sharpened obsidian that were significantly sharper than even modern steel razor blades or scalpels. Macuahuitl were made in a variety of styles, much as swords are, from ones that could be wielded with one hand to ones that were about six feet (1.8 meters) long and required two hands to swing. Although there are no authentic macuahuitl from the Aztec-Spanish War left in existence (the oldest known macuahuitl is a 19th century replica), they were said to be so sharp that a skilled user could decapitate a horse with a single blow. Indeed, the macuahuitl had a number of traits that made it effective as a weapon; by striking with the edge or one of the flat sides, the user could use it to kill or to incapacitate. As Aztecs were frequently more concerned about gaining captives in battle than killing their opponents, this made it useful as a weapon that could first be used to injure and weaken an opponent (the gaps between the pieces of obsidian also helping to limit how much damage it did depending on how it was used) and then bludgeon them into submission.

Of course, all weapons have downsides, and macuahuitls are no exception. The pieces of obsidian could quickly chip or become dull while being used, and although an obsidian blade can hold a much sharper edge than a steel blade it is also much more brittle. This made the macuahuitl of limited utility against steel armor (except as a bludgeoning weapon), and the length and heft of the average macuahuitl meant that it was more suited for individual combat (which the Aztecs preferred) than for group tactics since it requires a fair amount of space around the user to avoid injuring allies.

Bogo's sabre is a less exotic weapon by Western standards, favored by European militaries from the 16th century through the 19th century. Sabres are effective blades for both slashing and thrusting, and while the modern sport of sabre fencing uses weapons that don't have very much in common with 16th century sabres the combination of slashing and stabbing attacks makes it unique compared to épée and foil fencing in which only stabbing attacks are valid. Personally, I prefer the épée of the modern types of European fencing, but the épée is a ridiculously specialized weapon at this point not really good for anything but dueling. Sabres, particularly those used in actual warfare, are pretty well designed to deal with unarmored or lightly armored opponents.

Considering Bogo's size and likely strength, he could probably easily wield an enormous macuahuitl with one arm, although as described I think it makes more sense for him to have a shorter more portable one. Rather than just being a matter of fitting on his belt, the City Guard presumably doesn't run into many scenarios where the captain general needs to cut an elephant in half with a single swing; I imagine macuahuitls would be used more for bludgeoning in this setting in much the same way a modern police officer might make use of a nightstick. The sabre is more ceremonial than anything else; during the Aztec-Spanish War, while the Spaniards used steel European swords, their native allies against the Aztecs were only allowed to use steel weapons with special permission, giving them prestige over macuahuitls.

Bogo's feathered cloak as an indicator of his rank is inspired by the real-world Mesoamerican tradition of working with feathers to create items of clothing, some of which were reserved for certain ranks of society. The feathers of the resplendent quetzal (a bird that certainly lives up to its name), for instance, were only permitted to be used for items made for the emperor or the gods.

Princess Isabel's father being a prince consort rather than a king suggests the type of royalty that this version of Zootopia practices, with the ruler being only the direct line descendent and not necessarily sharing that power with his or her spouse. This is currently the practice of the British royal family and is the reason why Queen Elizabeth's husband is Prince Philip rather than King Philip.

One of the things that I've tried to accomplish with this story, by having multiple viewpoint characters, is to show the difference in their perceptions. In the last chapter, Judy noted that there hasn't been a civil war for centuries and thinks that such a war couldn't happen due to the torcs. In this chapter, Bogo thinks that if the death of the prince consort was thought to be murder it could have very easily plunged the city-state into the bloodiest war it had ever seen due to the torcs. Their narration is colored by their own experiences and knowledge, and their opinions are going to be their own.

This chapter shows what I consider to be a fairly reasonable limitation of philosopher's stones, even of complete ones; they can't cure all forms of cancer. I figured that because of the way that cancer operates, which is essentially that defective cells reproduce uncontrollably, there's not always something for the stone to fix. Granted, the philosopher's stone might work in certain cases, because the body does have mechanisms to fight cancerous cells, but the prince consort was absolutely riddled with tumors. I imagine that his cancer had metastasized so severely that any treatment that didn't completely eliminate all of the tumors wouldn't be a true cure.

This chapter also indicates that torcs have their limitations, being unable to retaliate against poisoning and more elaborate means of murder that don't require one mammal to directly kill another. I figure that for just about any system there are ways around it, and this also shows that even if most murders don't require much police work, being essentially self-resolving, it's not as though the City Guard doesn't see any successful murders.

Whether Oztoyehuatl actually was transmuted into stone to become the statue in front of his former residence or if, as Bogo believes, it's simply a legend intended to frighten mammals, stories of statues that cry are not uncommon. There have been a number of statues, mostly of the Virgin Mary, that have been reported to shed tears, and the Catholic Church has investigated (and rejected) most of these claims as hoaxes. One occurrence, from 1953, was recognized by the church. In this setting, a world where supernatural powers follow understandable rules, it's not necessarily impossible.

The word "tlatoani" literally means "one who speaks" but less literally means "ruler." In the days of the Aztec empire, city-states were ruled by tlatoanis, who reported to the emperor. The shrew calling himself either Tlatoani or Big is, of course, this setting's version of Mr. Big, and my choice of the name Alfonso is inspired by the name I chose for his 1920s version in "…And All That Jazz," Alphonse Biggliani, which was in turn inspired by the notorious gangster Alphonse Capone. The next chapter from Bogo's perspective will go into his crimes, but next week it'll be back to Nick and Judy.

As always, thanks for reading! I'd love to hear what you thought.


	7. Chapter 7

When Judy woke up, it was to the mournful sound of the wind blowing across the blasted landscape of the Outer Baronies, the gentle murmuring of the grit against her tent forming an undertone to the eerie whistling of air across the craters. She had put away the alchemical torch she had set in their camp the previous night, and the only light was the warmly orange glow of the rising sun coming through the fabric of her tent above her. At some point in the night, she had dropped the little golden carrot that Nick had made her, and she carefully put it in one of her belt's pouches before going about her morning routine.

Judy had grudgingly accepted that, as a bunny, she would always be smaller and weaker than any of the other members of the City Guard (until or unless a member of a smaller species joined, at least), but that had only instilled in her a complete refusal to neglect her physical training. Judy doubted any other recruits had ever spent so much time exercising; a bear or an elephant might allow themselves to go a little soft and still be effective based simply on their size and strength, but she had to be as agile, smart, and strong as she possibly could be.

Nearly an hour after she had started, when she was just beginning to drill with her spear, the gentle snores that had been coming from Nick's tent abruptly stopped. Nearly half an hour later, when she had begun to pant with exertion, Judy heard the rustling of cloth before Nick emerged, stretching widely as he took her in. Judy knew how she must have looked, wearing her lightest clothes despite the slight chill of morning and carrying a spear, and the fox simply offered her a half-smile. "Morning, Ensign," he said, "Lovely day, isn't it?"

Although he was almost certainly being sarcastic, there was a sort of strange beauty to the Outer Baronies in the light of early day. The dust and dirt that covered most of the ground seemed to twinkle and glitter, forming wavy patterns that moved and shifted with each gust of wind like the surface of a lake. The ruins of the Outer Wall were hazy in the distance, but they were obviously much closer than they had been when they had left the civilized world behind, and despite the crumbling of the enormous blocks they still spoke to the incredible skill and ingenuity of the mammals who had crafted such a barrier to still stand more or less intact after both centuries of neglect and the cataclysm that had scoured the Outer Baronies. Judy could even see a smudge squatting in the shadow of one of the sections of the Outer Wall that was mostly whole that could only be Phoenix, although she couldn't make out any details.

"It is," Judy replied, and whether or not Nick heard the genuineness in her voice he simply nodded.

The fox was wearing the same bottle-green coat he had worn the previous day, buttoned up to its raised collar against the morning chill, but otherwise seemed to be both freshly dressed and groomed. His exposed fur gleamed like polished metal, with not so much as a strand out of place, and Judy realized that as she had been training he must have been brushing himself for his tail to be so faultlessly fluffy after a night's sleep. Still, he was a civilian, after all, and as he seemed perfectly capable of walking at the same brisk pace as her it was his own business how he spent his time when they weren't travelling. "That's quite some skill you've got with that spear," Nick said, gesturing with his head toward the weapon in her paw, "You train with that every day?"

It sounded like an honest enough question rather than teasing, and Judy nodded. "Every morning," she said, "You could practice with me, if you'd like. I've never sparred with an alchemist before."

Nick chuckled as he sat down outside his tent, gingerly curling his tail away from the dirt. "I'm not much of a morning mammal," he said, "Besides, I'm not much of a fighter, either."

"So you're saying you don't think you could beat me?" Judy asked, trying to say the words as smugly as she could, and was rewarded by a brief flash of surprise across her travelling companion's face before he smiled widely.

"Why, I don't know if I'd go  _that_  far," he said, "I know secrets beyond the ken of most mammals."

He waggled his fingers as he spoke, inflecting each word with such an overly pompous air that Judy couldn't help but laugh. The Alchemist Guild had a reputation (one that was well-earned, from what she had heard) of considering themselves superior to mammals who didn't know magic, and it was obvious that Nick was quite familiar with that reputation. "So you're saying you  _could_  beat me?" Judy asked, and Nick pushed himself to his feet.

"It wouldn't be fair right now, would it?" he said, "Not after you've spent all morning tuckering yourself out training."

"Real fights aren't fair," Judy countered.

Although she had to admit that at least part of her desire to take Nick on in a sparring match was to prove to him that no matter how he teased her she really did have what it took to be a member of the City Guard, the chance to spar with an actual alchemist was too rare to pass up. The City Guard did have members who had trained as part of the Alchemist Guild, but none of them had been a part of her class, which wasn't surprising considering how rare alchemists were. Only alchemists who came from extremely wealthy families, or those who were truly devoted to Zootopia, would join the City Guard; there were far too many other jobs they could get that were both safer and better-paying. Judy couldn't actually think of any crime she had heard of where the City Guard had been required to apprehend an alchemist, which made sense considering how uncommon and rich alchemists tended to be, but there was always a first time for everything. The idea of arresting a criminal alchemist was a fantasy that she would have never admitted out loud; she had joined the City Guard to help make Zootopia safer and better, not to become famous, and the thought was rather embarrassing. The City Guard did have  _some_  alchemists, after all, and surely they would be the ones sent after a criminal alchemist, but still...

"Tonight, then," Nick said, interrupting her thoughts, "I suppose a friendly match is the least repayment I can give you for your charming company."

He winked at her. "Don't go easy on me," he said.

"I won't," Judy said, and thrust her paw towards him even as she swore to herself that she would absolutely win.

He shook her paw firmly, nodding his agreement. "Then let's get moving while the day is still young," he said.

It didn't take long for them to eat and pack up, and they had soon hit the road again. "I'm disappointed, by the way," Nick said, when they had barely gotten started, "Even out of uniform, you didn't wear the..."

He trailed off, gesturing vaguely at his neck rather than actually describing the little golden carrot he had made her. As part of her preparations to leave, Judy had cleaned herself up and changed back into her uniform, from the quilted red tunic and trousers to the gleaming steel breastplate and the feathered bracelets. It was true that even when out of uniform to exercise she hadn't worn the decoration, and she was happy to take advantage of the opportunity to return his teasing in kind. "Of course not," she said, trying and likely failing to keep a smile from her face, "I haven't decided on my answer yet."

"Your answer?" Nick asked, cocking his head to the side, "Your answer to what?"

"To your proposal, of course," she said, trying to making it sound as though it were obvious.

"Proposal?" Nick asked, his voice somewhat higher-pitched than it normally was and his tail obviously fuzzing out more than it usually did.

"Oh, you didn't know what giving a doe a torc ornament means?" Judy asked, and she was a little surprised at how well she was able to make her voice drip with mock sympathy, "Well, maybe a fox from the big bustling city center doesn't know how we do it out in the Middle Baronies, but in the Tochtli Barony bucks propose with an ornament they make themselves."

"Ah," Nick replied, nodding sagely, "Now I understand. I must simply be too handsome for you."

"Too handsome?" Judy repeated, quite a bit louder than was really necessary; it was amazing how quickly he regained his balance after something that should have left him stammering apologies for his misunderstanding and begging her to give the little trinket back.

"You agree, then," Nick said, "Of course, no bride wants her groom to be better looking than she is; that's simply a fact. Then again, I  _am_  such a catch that you must be in absolute turmoil trying to decide if I'm worth it."

He shot her a grin. "I am, by the way," he added in a voice just above a conspiratorial whisper, and then more loudly simply said, "So why don't you just hold onto it until you do have an answer?"

Judy could feel her ears burning as she looked up at him. He had all but said that he thought she was ugly, and while Judy wasn't quite as vain as he seemed to be it was still rather insulting. Besides, it wasn't as though he himself was particularly attractive; his fur was a pretty shade of red-orange and looked luxuriously soft, especially on his tail, but his proportions were simply all wrong. "You'd really marry a rabbit?" she asked, which sounded rather lame to her ears but was unfortunately about the best she could come up with.

"Would you really marry a fox?" he asked slyly.

She supposed he did have a point; he had figured that she obviously wouldn't hold him to his unintentional proposal and then had taken the opportunity to tease her further. Judy promised herself that, when they did spar, she'd have to be careful to not allow him to throw her off-balance with his words.

After her rather disappointing effort to pay him back (which Judy vowed she'd make up for that night), the day passed rather pleasantly in his company. The wastelands were so flat that it wasn't particularly difficult to keep up a good pace, even with her pack, and the smudge that was Phoenix grew larger even if didn't become more distinct, the shimmering haze of the earth heating up under the sun keeping it out of focus. The day was only so long, however, and when the sun began to set again Judy once more called a halt. She didn't think that traveling at night would have been particularly dangerous, especially since they had alchemical torches and there didn't seem to be anything on the path that could be a hazard, but they had made such excellent time that they would easily reach Phoenix the next day. As Nick had said that the proposals for alchemical water purification weren't due for another three days, there didn't seem to be much of a need to push onward. Besides, she had been eager for their sparring match ever since that morning and couldn't wait any longer.

Per Nick's suggestion, they would fight outside their camp; she certainly didn't have any desire to accidentally ruin their supplies. Using the same length of string he had used the previous night, he drew out a much larger circle, perhaps twenty feet in diameter, and set an alchemical torch at the center. The rules that they had agreed to were simple: the first to score three touches against their opponent would win, and either leaving the circle or being forced out would count as a point for the other mammal. The light that the alchemical torch cast was bright enough, even with the sun fully set, to completely illuminate the arena, and Judy began her preparations.

It would have obviously been too dangerous for her to spar against a living opponent with her spear having a pointed tip, so she had replaced it with a blunted practice tip that was precisely as long and as heavy but not nearly as dangerous. She had also changed into a similar outfit to what she had worn that morning, leaving aside the heavy quilted fabric of her uniform and the even heavier steel breastplate; Judy intended to take full advantage of her speed.

Nick had, somewhat curiously in her mind, continued to wear his bottle-green coat despite how heavy and constricting it looked, but she told herself to be careful. There was no telling what he might be hiding under it and it would be foolish not to anticipate some kind of trick. He had left his pack behind in his tent, but he had brought a slim and long package wrapped in fabric. "You don't mind if I adjust this first, do you?" he asked, gesturing with his free paw at what he was carrying, "It's a little too sharp for sparring right now."

Judy shook her head, bouncing on the balls of her feet as she watched him walk to the middle of the circle and unroll his package. It was, she saw, what seemed to be an officer's sabre, but it was easily the most beautiful sword she had ever seen. Nick must have heard her appreciative gasp, because he looked up at her, smiling slightly. "I'm glad to hear you approve," he said, "I made it myself. Thought I might find someone in Phoenix looking for a shiny new toy."

Calling the sword a shiny toy was vastly underselling it. In the light of the alchemical torch the sabre glowed like a mirror, and its hilt was wrapped in what looked like rough shagreen. The guard had an elegant curve to it and was engraved with elaborate swirls and lines that formed abstract patterns around flecks of what looked like diamonds. The piece of cloth it had been wrapped in, by contrast, was simply rough linen that had a pattern of a square interlocked in a circle painted on it, as well as a complicated series of triangles, with the words "ne puero gladium" around the circle. When Nick placed the sabre precisely on the center of the cloth, Judy saw that the intersections of the triangles defined the edge of the blade. As he had when he had performed alchemy the previous night, he set a candle, a vial of water, and a pawful of dirt at three of the intersections of the circle and the square, and there was the same sensation of magic being performed as he focused his effort onto the blade.

His work with the sabre, however, seemed to take longer than either his transmutation of the copper coin into gold or the gold coin into the carrot, and the effects seemed far less impressive. Perhaps it was because the edge of the blade had been sharpened to incredible thinness, but it didn't seem to glow the same way that the object being transmuted the previous night. Still, when he approached where she stood and offered to let her inspect the blade, it was undeniably blunt. "Just so you know I'm not going for blood," he said cheerfully as Judy ran one finger over what should have been the cutting edge.

She held the sabre a moment longer than was strictly necessary to check its sharpness, trying to see if it was special in some way, but it looked like a perfectly normal, albeit extremely well-made, sword. The balance was perfect, although it was somewhat too large for her to grip comfortably, and Judy doubted many captains in the City Guard had a weapon so finely engraved. It did not, however, have anything that she recognized as being possible to use for alchemy.

By contrast, Nick barely glanced at her spear; he gave it a seemingly cursory heft, ran one finger around its tip, and then gave it back. Judy's mind was racing as he took his position opposite her just inside the circle. The greatest advantage she had always had, in her academy days, had been her agility. Being smaller than any of her opponents also made her faster to change positions and dodge, and it went without saying she was also a significantly smaller target. Nick's choice of weapon, as unexpected as she found it for an alchemist, meant she had another advantage she almost never did; her reach was much greater than his.

With a sabre, his best chance of winning would be to get so close to her that her longer weapon became a disadvantage by getting the point past himself. She, in turn, would have to try to keep him as far away as possible, striking when he was in range but not close enough to do anything about it. Judy had never fought a fox before, or at least, not since she had been a kit without any training, and she thought about the natural advantages he would have. Although Nick was so slim that she doubted he got much in the way of serious exercise, he would definitely be stronger and might have the leverage to knock her spear away with his sword if she positioned herself poorly. Otherwise, Judy told herself that his only real advantage was his alchemy.

From what she had seen so far, alchemists (or at least Nick) didn't seem to be capable of transmuting objects quickly enough for it to be of any value in a fight. It had always taken him a couple of minutes to perform his magic, and in a battle being fought in such a small arena she could easily make sure he never got the chance to use it. Then again, he had likely made his weapon with alchemy, and there was no telling what he had prepared before they ever met that he might have pulled from his pack and concealed in his coat.

The fact that he had made the sword also meant, she felt, that he might be lying about being inexperienced at combat; surely if he had the knowledge to craft such a finely-made weapon he knew something about how to use it.

"Ready?" she called, looking across the circle at her opponent.

If Nick was at all nervous about their sparring match, he showed no sign of it that she could see in the silvery light of the alchemical torch as he saluted her lazily with the sabre. "Ready," he called back.

Judy tightened her grip on her spear, feeling her heart pounding through her fingertips. It wasn't fear at facing a mammal larger than she was or nervousness at the prospect of what an alchemist might be able to do. It was, quite simply, excitement at the challenge, and Judy could feel a fierce smile forming across her face. "We go on three," she said.

"One…" she said, and her vision collapsed down until Nick was the only thing she could see; the distant lights of Phoenix and the twinkle of the stars in the moonless sky faded out of view as unimportant distractions.

"Two…" Judy said, and she tensed her legs, preparing herself to bound forward at Nick to cross the distance and strike before he had the chance to react.

" _Three!_ " she cried, and with her spear pointing straight forward, like an extension not just of her body but of her very will, she lunged.

* * *

**Author's Notes:**

The fact that the City Guard uniforms in this story are red, rather than blue as the police uniforms are in the movie, is reflective of what the Spanish Army wore during the Spanish-Aztec War; officers wore bright red uniforms. Although blue is commonly associated with police in the present, there are plenty of modern exceptions, such as the distinctive dress uniform of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Since in this setting the police also wear bracelets with brightly colored feathers and shiny steel armor, and at the very least captain generals have a cloak of feathers as part of their uniform, stealth is pretty obviously not a concern of the City Guard.

Shagreen is a type of leather made of untanned skin, and in this case would likely be made of sharkskin. Shagreen was historically prized for its quality for wrapping hilts, as its rough texture aids in gripping, and the fact that it isn't made out of a mammal product makes it a good fit for this setting.

The literal meaning of the Latin phrase "ne puero gladium" is "don't give a sword to a boy," with the obvious intended meaning that dangerous tools shouldn't be given to someone who can't use them responsibly. The use of alchemy to blunt or sharpen a blade is one of those little practical things that I thought made sense for the setting; if you can perfectly adjust the structure of something it seems like manually sharpening a blade would usually be the inferior option.

Spears frequently get short shrift in fiction (likely because swords are generally seen as being much cooler), but they were often used in real conflicts because they are practical weapons. Spears are easier to make and require less metal than swords, and they can be extremely effective when wielded by soldiers with little training. Judy accurately covers one of the key disadvantages of spears in her thoughts; if your opponent gets too close to you, the spear's length becomes a liability rather than an advantage since you can't get them with the tip. Another important disadvantage, albeit one that doesn't really come to play fighting outside in an open field, is that the length of spears makes them awkward for use indoors or on ships.

As always, thanks for reading! Having the chapter end immediately before Nick and Judy begin sparring is hopefully not too much of a letdown, but I thought the pacing worked better if that was split from the setup. As to which one of them will win, well, that will come out two weeks from now when the narrative jumps back to them. I'd certainly be interested in hearing who you think will emerge victorious!


	8. Chapter 8

"Captain General, you honor me with your visit," the little shrew said.

His voice had a gravelly quality to it that belied his diminutive size, but not even the cultured and deliberate smoothness he spoke with could quite hide that the Old Tongue had been his first language. His accent was slight and mildly nasal; Alfonso had the voice of a merchant who had pulled himself up from nothing to the highest ranks of society outside of nobility. With great delicacy he stood up, pulling at his thin prison tunic to straighten it as though it was made of cloth-of-gold, and looked gravely up towards Bogo. "Your family is well, I hope," he continued, "There is nothing more important than family."

His words were, as they seemingly always were, as gentle and soft as silk, but Bogo didn't think he was imagining the implied threat that lurked beneath them. Alfonso had proven himself, over a long and violent career, to be as ruthless as he was devoted to his own family. Bogo had seen it for himself, nearly thirty long years ago, when their paths had first crossed. That Alfonso had stuck in his memory had, for some weeks afterwards, seemed strange to him, a quirk of memory when it had not even come close to being the worst part of that day. With time, though, Bogo had eventually realized what it was that kept his first memory of the shrew so fresh. He had delivered terrible news to many mammals over the course of his career and had seen mammals react in every possible way. There were those who denied it, those who wept, even those rare few who uselessly threw themselves at him, their grief turning into anger at the mammal who had delivered the news. Alfonso, however, had given no outward reaction to hearing that his brother Miguel had died, even as his mother, sister, and his brother's wife collapsed into each other weeping helpless tears. His face—thinner and with somewhat less bushy brows in those days—had remained stony as he asked a single question in a voice with an accent that had been much thicker. "It was an accident, you are sure?"

At the time, Bogo had thought it to be an accident, the sort of senseless tragedy that the unfeeling magic of torcs could and occasionally did cause. An elephant, drunk as a rabbit off octli, had stepped on a shrew, whose torc had made the elephant suffer identical injuries. Bogo had been one of the first members of the City Guard to the scene and he knew that he would never forget it. Bogo's partner had resigned nearly immediately afterwards, and Bogo couldn't blame him, because what they had seen had been the stuff of nightmares. If it hadn't been for the size of the remains—what was left couldn't be called a body—and the gleaming yellow-white bits of ivory left from the tusks like islands in a sea of red it would have been impossible to identify that the mammal had been an elephant. Gore had splattered up the sides of the buildings on either side of that narrow street, blood running down the gutters and unidentifiable pieces clogging drains swarming with buzzing flies. The smell, Bogo knew, would never leave him; the rich coppery scent of blood had hung over the scene like a haze, impossibly strong and yet not strong enough to overcome the far worse scent of everything that had been in the elephant, from the pungently sour and yeasty smell of octli (which even decades later Bogo still couldn't drink) to the harsh and nausea-inducing scent of excrement.

It had taken some time to find the even more mangled remains of the shrew, and dreams of digging through the elephant's remains had haunted Bogo for months afterwards, a task that had taken hours stretched out infinitely until it seemed it was all he had ever done or would ever do. The sensation of finding the shrew's torc, slick and grotesquely warm even in the cooling charnel mess, had brought about a nearly equal sense of revulsion and gratitude; it had been obvious what had happened to the elephant and after finding the poor victim that had been stepped on cleaning up the mess would be someone else's problem.

After cleaning up and contacting the next of kin, a task made possible only because of the engravings upon the torcs of the elephant and the shrew, there should have been nothing left for Bogo to do except try to move beyond what he had seen. The question Alfonso had asked, however, had haunted him nearly as much as the gore. There was no law saying that rodents and other small mammals had to stay within the confines of the New Quimichin Barony, of course, but it was still rather unusual for one to be wandering around a part of the city populated mostly by elephants, particularly one who had no reason to be there. Miguel, like his brother Alfonso, had been an unremarkable insect farmer, a delicacy not usually favored by elephants. The elephant himself—Hector de la Plana, a name Bogo would never forget—had lived in a house that was rather large and grandly furnished for a middle-ranked civil servant, and none of Hector's family or neighbors thought it was in his character to drink to excess, although he had seemed rather stressed to them shortly before his death.

Bogo hadn't learned it all at once, of course—he had puzzled out the pieces over the course of months, continuing to investigate on his own, slowly at first and then with a nearly obsessive focus as every little detail that pointed to foul play came out. There was the canid four eye-witnesses had seen leaving the scene of Miguel's and Hector's deaths, a canid just as out of place on Savanna Street as a shrew. There wasn't quite any agreement from those witnesses on whether the mammal had been male or female, or even whether it had been a coyote, a wolf, or a fox, but they all said that despite being painted red with blood it had walked calmly and purposefully towards a nearby alley. There was the distribution of Hector's possessions among his heirs, which revealed quite a bit of expensive finery he simply shouldn't have been able to afford. There had been the way that Miguel had simply vanished shortly before his death, his last known destination being to arrange a contract with a restaurant catering to anteaters.

What it had all pointed to was that Hector de la Plana had been accepting bribes at his job until, at some point, he hadn't. The mammals paying those bribes had seemed to take exception to that, and Hector must have known it, the stress driving him to drink. Miguel had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time, kidnapped by mammals who needed someone small enough to be completely crushed under an elephant's foot.

When Bogo had at last identified the canid who had positioned Miguel under Hector's foot, a male coyote suspected of being a member of the Six Brothers, his commanding officer had considered it a job well done. The coyote had been arrested, Bogo had received a promotion to captain and a transfer across the city, and that had been that. Until, of course, other members of the Six Brothers, once the most notorious gang in all the city, had started dying in a variety of unusual ways, but Bogo shook the thought aside. Seeing Alfonso again had dredged up memories he didn't like dwelling on, and his answer to Alfonso's comment was sharp. "Quite well," Bogo said, "It would be unfortunate if that changed."

Alfonso nodded slowly. "It would," he said, but whether it was an apology for the implication or simply an acknowledgement of fact was impossible to tell.

"I have not had a visitor since my sentence began," Alfonso continued smoothly, "To what do I owe the honor?"

Bogo was struck by how poised the shrew remained, as though they were negotiating a minor business contract rather than being on either side of an interrogation. He had carefully planned out how he wanted to question Alfonso on his trip to the cell, and rejected a number of potential approaches. He was sure that suggesting that Alfonso's daughter had been taken into custody would work quite well—but only if it was true. Unfortunately, Alfonso had apparently had the foresight to see her to safety before his own arrest, and as of yet the City Guard had come up with nothing in their search. Alfonso was not stupid, though, and any trick was unlikely to work on him. In the end, Bogo had decided to go with the simplest possible approach, and so he said, "Someone tried assassinating the princess."

Alfonso's eyes became briefly visible as they widened in surprise and his heavy brows shot upward, but they quickly vanished again. "You suppose I might have been involved," Alfonso said blandly.

"Yes," Bogo said, "The queen has given me permission to take any action I think appropriate to find the mammal responsible."

After a brief pause, Bogo added, as ominously as he could manage, "Any. Action."

"We both know you are an honorable mammal, Captain General," Alfonso replied, "Do not insult me with such obvious—"

"This isn't a game!" Bogo snapped, banging one hoof against the thick piece of diamond that separated him from the prisoner, "Don't think I won't do what I have to."

Bogo immediately regretted losing his temper, and not only because his fingers were throbbing painfully from the force he had struck the unyielding barrier with. Giving in to his anger was giving Alfonso control of the conversation, and giving the prisoner the advantage was a disaster waiting to happen. "I cannot tell you what I do not know," Alfonso said quietly, "I have learned this, although perhaps you have not."

Bogo supposed that if there was any mammal who knew about the results torture provided it would be the former gang leader; some of the mammals who had crossed him had ended up almost as badly off as Hector de la Plana. There were weaknesses in torcs that even civilians could take advantage of, and Alfonso had been creative enough to find them. "Your stay here can be even more unpleasant," Bogo said, reaching down deep to find the well of calmness and authority he relied on, "I can authorize bloodletting."

Generally speaking, the jail only took blood from those prisoners who belonged to species that had attributes that made their blood useful for quauhxicallis. Prisoners did, however, tend to be more compliant when they were weak from blood loss, as most of the ones Bogo had passed on his way to visit Alfonso had been, and his sense of honor had no qualms about ordering it. "Do what you must to fulfill your duty," Alfonso said, "I understand. It is the burden of mammals such as ourselves."

Bogo thought that he understood Alfonso perhaps as well as any mammal could, and he thought Alfonso meant the comparison honestly enough. Bogo had needed to understand Alfonso because there had been no other way to combat the Black Paw. Bogo had even swallowed his own pride and given Leodore Corazón a major political victory by, for the first time in Zootopia's long history, incorporating the New Quimichin Barony into the overall City Guard rather than allowing the little lords (both physically and in terms of political power in the greater city-state) who had previously overseen the district's security to run it according to their whims. Officers from the New Quimichin Barony had no place in the greater Zootopia City Guard, of course, but they had their uses, and a better understanding of Alfonso when he had been known as Tlatoani had been one of them.

In the New Quimichin Barony, Alfonso had not been feared or hated; he was widely loved by the mammals who saw him as standing up to the corrupt lords who ran the barony as they pleased with almost no oversight. By becoming a crime lord even more vindictive and cruel than any of the othersin Zootopia, he had completely put an end to the practice of other gangs kidnapping small mammals to use as murder weapons the way his own brother had been used; he had given the mammals of the New Quimichin Barony what they had wanted most. Alfonso had promised safety and stability, and the costs he asked were so small in comparison. What did it matter, if mammals larger than the residents of the New Quimichin Barony suffered? It was only the larger mammals getting what was coming to them, after all, the larger mammals who had carved out so much room for themselves and so little for those smaller than them.

Their grudge stretched back generations, to when the original Quimichin Barony had been obliterated along with the rest of the Outer Baronies in an alchemical apocalypse unlike anything that had happened before or since. The New Quimichin Barony, it was said, was a poor imitation of what had been lost, although of course there was no one alive who could make an honest comparison. Perhaps it had been no better, but Alfonso had sold the mice, shrews, voles, and other tiny mammals of the New Quimichin Barony the dream of it, that with hard work they could surpass their ancestors. He had, in short, taken on the improvement of the New Quimichin Barony as his duty and his burden, in much the same way that Bogo had taken responsibility for every mammal in the city-state when he had accepted the rank of Captain General.

The difference between them, though, was not something that had ever cost Bogo any sleep. No matter what Alfonso or any of his supporters said about his purpose or intentions, Bogo knew that the shrew was driven by the anger he had seen but not quite recognized when they had first met. Alfonso hid it as well as he did his accent, but it was always there, fury turned cold and sharp by time. He had taken his revenge on all of the mammals even remotely responsible for his brother's death, and when there had been no more vengeance to have he had not stopped.

Bogo, however, knew when to stop. Torturing Alfonso would give him no pleasure—the day he delighted in inflicting pain, no matter how well it was deserved, was the day he would no longer be fit to serve as Captain General—and it was his duty to serve the queen's  _needs_  and not her  _wants_. No matter how badly she wanted someone to pay for attempting to murder her daughter, what she needed was for the culprit to be caught. No more, and no less. "It's the burden of a parent," Bogo said slowly, "If someone attempted to kill your daughter, would you do any less?"

Alfonso considered the question for a long moment. "I could not," he said at last.

Bogo waited, choosing his next words carefully. The shrew had not quite volunteered to help provide answers, but he also had not quite closed himself off from saying anything more. "The assassin used powerful quauhxicallis," Bogo said, "The most powerful I've ever seen."

"Powerful?" Alfonso echoed, his tone thoughtful, "Describe, then, what made them so powerful."

Although the shrew was not, to Bogo's knowledge, a blood magician, he had employed many at the height of his power. The quauhxicallis manufactured by the Black Paw had been among the strongest available, and Alfonso had always struck Bogo as the sort of mammal who had made it his business to understand his business. Bogo described, in as much detail as he could, how rapidly the llama had moved, how he had seemed to exceed what his body could handle. When he had finished, Alfonso had remained silent for a while. "Quauhxicallis are more powerful if the sacrifice is made willingly," he said at last, "Did you know this?"

Bogo nodded; it was why quauhxicallis made from prisoners weren't distributed to members of the City Guard, and also why the ones they did use were so expensive even with members being frequently tapped for volunteers. It was also, Bogo supposed, why the quauhxicallis made by the Black Paw had been so strong; Alfonso had not been lacking in mammals willing to sacrifice for him. "I have heard that quauhxicallis may be made with something stronger than blood alone," Alfonso continued, "They may be made with a life."

"A life?" Bogo repeated, equally horrified by the idea as well as by how calmly Alfonso described it.

Sacrificing mammals to create quauhxicallis was said to have been what made the armies of the old emperors so powerful; each mammal had fought with the strength and abilities of dozens or more mammals. The warrior Xiuhcoatl, it was said, had fought with the hearts of a hundred mammals, all willingly given, and had defeated nearly ten thousand soldiers sieging the Inner Wall alone before falling in battle herself. Even if the story was an exaggeration, as Bogo thought it must be, it showed the barbaric depravity of Emperor Ocelotl that had been outlawed for centuries. "Then someone killed a cheetah to make the quauhxicalli the llama used," Bogo said, and Alfonso shrugged slightly.

"It is not impossible," he said, "It may have been done beyond the Middle Wall."

Besides Phoenix there simply wasn't much in the Outer Baronies; there were no other settlements and no resources worth speaking of. The mammals at the gates did, however, dutifully log all the mammals who came and went, and Bogo had the beginning of an idea. Phoenix was the logical place for a cheetah to willingly sacrifice him or herself. Perhaps that cheetah had been a longtime resident of Phoenix, but it seemed just as possible that a deliberate trip had been made there for the purpose of fulfilling the sacrifice. "I have names that may be of some help to you," Alfonso said, interrupting Bogo's thoughts, "None of my blood magicians would do such a thing, but I know of others."

Alfonso must have read the obvious question on Bogo's face—what could possibly make him trustworthy—and he continued speaking. "I have never thanked you for finding my brother's murderer. I should pay my debt now, on one condition."

"What's that?" Bogo asked.

"I should like to know if my daughter is found," Alfonso said, and for the first time the shrew's composure had cracked.

A flicker of exquisite misery crossed Alfonso's face, full of the pain and despair only a parent could know. Alfonso, Bogo realized, was admitting that he had not succeeded in spiriting his daughter away after all. She had made her own escape, and not knowing what she was doing, whether or not she was safe, must have been eating away at him. Another mammal might have cracked the instant his forced isolation from other mammals had ended, begging and pleading for help and promising anything in return, but that wasn't who Alfonso was. It wasn't that he didn't love his daughter, because Bogo thought Alfonso loved and cherished her above anything else he had, but because it was in her best interest if the City Guard thought her location was something Alfonso alone could give up.

"If she  _is_  found, she can tell you herself," Bogo said, "There's no warrant out for her arrest."

It was, strictly speaking, not exactly true, but it would be easy enough to change; as Captain General Bogo had the power to ensure she would suffer nothing more than questioning.

"Do you swear this on your honor, Captain General?" Alfonso asked, his voice low.

"I swear it on my life," Bogo replied, as forcefully as he could, and the shrew nodded.

"Do you have something to write on?" Alfonso asked, "I have much to tell you."

Bogo pulled out a small bound book, and once he had settled himself to take notes, the former gang leader began to speak.

* * *

**Author's Notes:**

The Old Tongue, in this story, is Nahuatl; I imagine that the translation convention is in effect and whenever the characters are speaking English they're actually speaking Spanish.

Cloth-of-gold is a real material that dates back thousands of years, and was historically made by wrapping a strand of fiber (typically silk, but sometimes also wool or linen) with a finely drawn band of gold, and then weaving the strands together. Cloth-of-gold is therefore quite heavy, as it contains gold, and due to the expense of making it was largely reserved for nobility in the past. It's also possible that the Greek myth of the Golden Fleece was inspired by the practice of making cloth-of-gold, although there are several other plausible theories.

Octli is the original name for the drink now known as pulque, which is made of fermented agave sap. The drink is milky in color and has a viscous consistency, and while it is deliberately manufactured the sap of the agave plant can also naturally ferment within the plant. The consumption of pulque was strictly controlled in the pre-colonial days of Mexico; it was a drink reserved for elders and priests, but following colonization became much more frequently consumed. Pulque does have a somewhat sour and yeasty smell; I can't say that I'm a fan of it, but to each their own when it comes to libations.

Arctic shrews, in real life, subsist largely off of insects, and I figure farming insects in the world of Zootopia, even in an AU, can be a decent business.

Bogo's narration considering the elephant as drunk as a rabbit is in reference to the Centzon Tōtōchtin (meaning, literally, "four hundred rabbits"), a group of divine rabbits in Aztec mythology who go around having wildly drunken parties. I figured it made an interesting stereotype for rabbits in this version of Zootopia; not only are they looked down upon as being weak but they're also considered inveterate drinkers. It gives another dimension to why Bogo isn't fond of the idea of a rabbit member of the City Guard, too; like his film counterpart this version of Bogo has his own prejudices.

When describing what happened to Alfonso's brother, my goal was to get across the horror of it without going too far; hopefully it worked in that respect. Fairly early on in this story, reader CorvidaeHakubi asked what would happen if a larger mammal stepped on a mouse. This chapter really answers that question in terms of how poorly it would end for both mammals, as the magic of the torcs would cause the larger mammal to suffer identical fatal injuries.

In real life, the voice actor for Bogo, Idris Elba, is 46 years old. I figure in this story Bogo is around 50 or so, and thus rose through the ranks pretty quickly, putting his promotion to the rank of captain in his early twenties.

The New Quimichin Barony is named using the Nahuatl word for "mouse" and is essentially this setting's version of Little Rodentia. In the movie, really the only information that we know about Mr. Big is that he's a parody of Don Corleone from the Godfather, and considering that this is an AU I took some latitude in how I interpreted his past. This chapter directly relates a lot of it, including what can be seen as his origin, although it doesn't cover much of his rise to power. I figured, though, that he's most interesting as a villain who doesn't see himself as a villain; he's pretty clearly done terrible things in the interests of protecting the residents of the New Quimichin Barony and doesn't show any obvious remorse.

This chapter describes two of the sources for the blood used to make quauhxicallis: prisoners and members of the City Guard. I thought these were logical enough sources of blood, and this chapter also expands a little on what makes quauhxicallis work. The idea of them being more powerful if the animal providing the blood makes the sacrifice willingly is inspired by the way Aztecs practiced human sacrifice, in which those being sacrificed often (although not always) submitted willingly. It also illustrates why alchemy is held in higher regard at the time this story is set; the most powerful means of making quauhxicallis is illegal and (rightfully, I think) considered barbaric, and I don't think it's much of a stretch for a similar disdain to accompany the field of magic as a whole.

The word "Xiuhcoatl" is Nahuatl for "turquoise serpent" but less literally means "fire serpent." The Xiuhcoatl was both a mythological creature as well as an atlatl (a spear thrower) wielded by Huītzilōpōchtli, the primary Aztec god of war.

Warrants, including arrest warrants, have been used for a very long time, although the issuing authority depends on the type of government. In a monarchy, such as this version of Zootopia, warrants could be issued by judges or by the crown, but Bogo's confidence in being able to ensure Alfonso's daughter doesn't come to any harm suggests that the City Guard, as a military force, has a significant amount of power in the legal system. Warrants have sometimes been broadly used; the reason for the Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution, for instance, is that before the American Revolution British customs officials had sweeping powers to conduct searches of private property under extremely general warrants.

As always, thanks for reading! I'd love to know what you thought.


	9. Chapter 9

As Judy rushed across the dueling circle, she was rewarded by the sight of Nick's eyes noticeably widening in apparent surprise at the ferocity of her charge. Her lunge took her across the distance far too quickly for anything like complete thoughts to cross her mind, but it felt as though all of her training and practice had been distilled down to the point where words were completely unnecessary. Nick was holding his sabre in his left paw with his left foot leading and his body turned to face her, and without even needing to think about it she adjusted her angle of attack to go towards the gap in his defense.

Her instructors would have been proud of how cleanly she accounted for him being left-pawed; after a number of painful strikes to the elbow from a left-pawed goat who had been one of her class's sword masters she had drilled herself in how to position herself just so—veering out a little to the right and aiming for the outside—that her follow through was perfect. If Nick had been even a hair slower the blunt point of her spear would have caught his right shoulder, but he dodged smoothly to the left, bringing up his own blade as he did so.

Judy had advanced a step when he dodged before planting her feet in the gritty dirt and halting her progress; even so Nick had just managed to get into range where his sword might actually be able to touch her. However, as Béla, that gruff old goat of a fencer, had been fond of saying, something that  _almost_  hit and a copper piece was worth a copper piece. Judy's counter was just as perfectly timed as her strike had been, bringing the end of her spear that didn't have a tip up and knocking Nick's sabre aside before making a satisfying contact with his gut. He barked a sort of short cough and stumbled, but he hadn't had the wind knocked out of him and Judy knew she had modulated the amount of force she had used perfectly to avoid injuring anything but his bloated pride. She retreated to her edge of the circle, balancing herself on the balls of her feet as she waited for him to do the same.

Judy considered what she had learned from her first point. No matter what he might say, Nick's technique showed that he had some training in how to use a sword; the way he had dodged her first strike had proved it. He hadn't done so with the clumsy awkwardness of a novice, but had side-stepped so smoothly that it was obvious he knew what to do. After that display of fencing technique, his failure to react in time to her counter was a bit more difficult to judge. Could he have been playing with her, willingly giving up the first point to better judge her own reactions? He was obviously clever, and while just as obviously all foxes weren't necessarily tricksters it didn't mean that he wasn't trying to trick her. He had already lied about his experience as a fighter and it didn't seem like much of a stretch to figure he might be hiding as much of his own skill with a sword as he possibly could. He also hadn't so much as tried, so far as Judy could tell, to do anything with alchemy. Then again, Nick  _was_ left-pawed. He might have been able to rely on how unfamiliar most fighters were with fighting someone left-pawed so much that he had no idea what to do against someone who had actually properly trained for it.

As Judy looked across the circle at Nick, her mind running around and around as she tried to consider all the angles, he simply smiled widely. He did not look like a mammal who had been caught off-guard; he seemed as smug as ever, as though he had been the one to score the first point and not Judy. Then again, maybe he was just putting on a strong front to try to get inside her head and shake her confidence. He wouldn't succeed of course—but why did he seem so nonchalant?—since Judy had seen enough—but had it only been what he  _wanted_ her to see?—that she was simply better—or was he trying to lull her into a false sense of security?—at fighting than he was.

"That was a good point, Carrots," Nick called out, drawling his nickname for her, "You've really got quite the arm with that spear."

He made a show of rubbing, with his right paw, the spot where she had struck him; Judy couldn't help but notice that he had allowed his left paw, still lazily holding his sabre, to remain casually at his side. "I'll be feeling that one tomorrow," he added, with a wink and an exaggerated wince that went from the tips of his ears (which splayed pathetically outwards) to the end of his tail, which shimmied and shook as his body did.

Somehow, he had managed to make words that were objectively compliments and had no obvious hidden meaning sound almost teasing but not quite condescending; he had the air of a parent impressed by a precocious kit. Judy ground her teeth together, telling herself to ignore the jibe. She was better than him and no amount of teasing could make up for his lack of skill unless she allowed it to. "Ready?" she asked, and she thought her voice was remarkably neutral.

Nick's grin, however, widened a degree as though she had betrayed her true feelings. "Any time," he said.

After another three count, Judy advanced, not nearly as quickly as she had for her first strike. Nick moved around the border of the circle slowly, back and forth, even as she advanced, and Judy couldn't help but admire the seeming casualness with which he did so. His knees were loosely bent, each movement graceful in its own way, and even as he maneuvered the tip of his sabre remained pointing unerringly in her direction. Judy had no choice but to rotate with him to prevent him from getting behind her, but he didn't take so much as a step toward her. There didn't seem to be any tension within his body whatsoever, and no matter how she tried to find one she couldn't see any tell that gave a clue as to when he would switch directions. The light of the alchemical torch was bright enough to completely banish the shadows within the ring, but his eyes didn't so much as twitch, let alone shift, to indicate the direction he would go in; he kept his mildly quizzical gaze focused entirely on her. Each step was unerringly within the boundaries of the circle despite the fact that he wasn't looking down at the line.

When Judy had closed the distance enough that any further movement forward on her part would put him within range of her spear while keeping her safely out of the range of his sword, he made no motion to get closer and Judy prepared her gambit. She started backing away, bringing her spear's tip up until the shaft of the spear was resting on her shoulder, one paw gripping it near the butt and the other about halfway up. She kept a careful eye on Nick as she did so, but he simply continued circling the outer edge of the dueling ring—until, that was, she had advanced into striking distance again.

As she brought the tip down, which whistled through the air, he lunged forward with shocking speed, his rear foot crossing over his front as he all but flew at her. With instinct borne of long practice, rather than stopping her strike she let it continue even as the tip of the spear uselessly hit the ground, and then swept sharply to the side. A plume of gritty dirt came up, but more importantly was the ringing metallic sound of Nick's blade catching against the shaft of her spear. The impact sent shocks up Judy's arms; Nick was stronger even than she had guessed, and his reaction to having his attack blocked was nearly instant as he continued past her. He let the blade of his sword run up the shaft of her spear, towards her numb fingers near the spear's butt even as she lifted the spear and tried to disengage.

The moment before the sword's dull edge would have painfully run into her fingers, Judy let go with that paw and spun around on the ball of one foot, her other paw still gripping the spear closer to its head. Nick squirmed to the side an instant too late and caught the blunt spear tip in the middle of his back, sprawling into the dirt as he let go of his sabre. It took the fox a minute to get up, his paws unsteady beneath him as he scrabbled at the dirt, which Judy could sympathize with; it was painful to get hit in the back. "Another good one," Nick acknowledged once he was finally upright again.

His once-magnificent green coat was completely covered with dirt, which also stained the creamy white patch of fur that ran along the underside of his muzzle, but even with his fur dulled by the ubiquitous grit of the Outer Baronies his eyes sparkled just as playfully as ever. "I told you I wasn't much of a fighter," he said, running his right paw carelessly along his left sleeve, "Look, my coat tore."

The embroidered cloth had indeed torn near the elbow, revealing that the dark brown fur of his paws and wrists didn't continue quite that far up his arms; the exposed fur was just as red-orange as most of his head. "I'll have to submit a bill to the City Guard, you know," he said, clucking his tongue even as he shook his head sadly, "Not that they'll respond."

He shrugged expansively as he took up his position at the border of the arena again. "But I suppose this has been fun, hasn't it, Carrots? It's easily worth one coat."

"Ready?" Judy asked, unsure of why he was suddenly so talkative, but Nick shook his head.

"Now, now, just a minute," he said, "You know what would be  _more_  fun?"

Judy narrowed her eyes at him, but he chuckled. "So suspicious!" he said, "Even when you nearly have me beat."

Judy could feel her ears perking up, feeling somewhere in her gut that he was angling toward something even without knowing what it was. "Let's make this more interesting," Nick continued smoothly, "If you win, I'll give you this finely made sabre as a token of a battle well fought. Excellently crafted, you know."

He waved the sabre, which glittered in the light of the torch, to emphasize his point. "And if  _you_ win?" Judy asked, cutting him off before he had the chance to go on.

"Oh, nothing much," Nick said, "Just one little favor."

"What kind of favor?" Judy asked with mounting suspicion; she was sure that there had to be some kind of trick.

"Nothing illegal, of course," Nick said, seeming unperturbed, "All I ask—and it is a small thing, really—is that you pass my name along to anyone you meet who needs an alchemist."

His words came out as smooth as butter and Judy couldn't help but stare at him. She had half-expected him to ask her to help smuggle things past the gate on their way back to the Middle Baronies or abuse her authority to lean on someone who owed him money (or someone he owed money to) or even to steal something from the City Guard's central library, which was said to contain all sorts of interesting and ancient tomes. "That's it?" Judy asked.

"That's it," Nick confirmed cheerfully, nodding his head.

"But— But I'd do that anyway!" she protested, which was the truth; despite his tendency to tease he was the only alchemist she knew and did seem rather talented.

Nick laughed. "My, we'll have to work on your negotiating a bit," he said, "But I suppose if that's too little, there's another tiny favor you could do for me. Once we get to Phoenix, there's a bookstore I'd like you to visit. The owner won't sell anything to a fox alchemist, you see, but a bunny..."

Nick shrugged. "Well, it's worth a shot," he said with remarkable good humor, "So what do you say? Do we have a deal?"

"I'd do that even if I lose," Judy said.

"Having low expectations pays off again," Nick said cheerfully, "Now—"

"But I've got one condition," Judy interrupted.

"I'm listening," Nick replied.

"I wanted to spar with you to fight an alchemist," Judy said, "And it's not that you're not good with a sword, but..."

"Not quite what you wanted?" Nick asked with an innocent tone.

"No," Judy said, "So I want you to fight with alchemy. If you do win, I'll give you any favor you want."

"As long as it's legal," she hastily added, and Nick nodded.

"As long as it's legal," he said agreeably, and perhaps she imagined it but Judy thought she saw something of a hungry gleam in his eyes, "On three again?"

When they began again, Judy hadn't been quite sure what to expect of Nick's alchemy, so she had lunged forward as quickly as she possibly could. She felt as though she had a decent sense of how quickly the fox could move, and since the greatest advantage his alchemy could give him was unpredictability she didn't want to give him the chance to react. She lunged forward so quickly that it didn't even occur to her until it was too late that when their countdown had reached one Nick had closed his eyes and had not reopened them. When she was almost to the alchemical torch that marked the center of the arena Nick swept one foot through the grit, making a semicircle, and as he did so the torch seemed to explode with pure white light.

Judy had seen powerful alchemical torches, such as the ones that lit up the Royal Palace, but only from a distance and never one so bright as to seem to temporarily turn night back into day. Although her eyes had snapped shut nearly the instant the torch had brightened it had still been too late. Dizzying colors bloomed behind her eyelids, throbbing with an impossible and unnatural brightness, and when she opened her eyes she couldn't see anything. She could still hear Nick's approach, though, and despite the disorientation of being suddenly blind she swung her spear outwards and was rewarded with a sound that could have only been Nick jumping backwards to avoid getting caught by it. Judy blinked rapidly, willing her eyes to work again, even as one of her ears twitched in response to a sudden sound and she threw herself to the side, feeling Nick's presence move past her.

Judy focused everything she could on listening for Nick, trying to divine his movements out of the rustle of cloth and whisper of the pads of his feet against the dirt. She wished she had a bat quauhxicalli; being able to actually  _see_ using sound would have been an incredible advantage in the moment, but she had unfortunately decided not to take her quauhxicallis with her into the sparring match. The City Guard demanded usage reports for every single quauhxicalli (in response, she suspected, to guards selling them for tidy personal profits), and Judy thought she'd probably be up for disciplinary charges if she told the truth. Besides, there was still no telling what they might still encounter on the road; it wouldn't do to waste a quauhxicalli she might have a genuine need for later.

Judy tried to banish her scattered thoughts as she rolled to the side again, barely keeping a grip on her spear as she barely dodged another swing from Nick. The spots in her eyes were fading, though, and she desperately pushed her ears to their very limits, trying to hold on just a little bit longer until she could see again. Something, however, was very wrong; although the spots were fading Judy still couldn't see anything. After a brief stab of irrational fear that Nick had permanently blinded her—which nearly resulted in Nick catching her with his sword—Judy realized what it really meant. She couldn't see anything because Nick had, after making the alchemical torch glow impossibly bright, simply made it stop glowing. There was no moon in the sky and the stars weren't nearly bright enough for her eyes but they were for Nick's superior night vision—which became immediately apparent when Nick suddenly called, "My point!"

"But you didn't even touch—" Judy began, but she stopped when the alchemical torch suddenly flared back to life at its usual brightness.

In its silvery white glow, Judy saw that she was beyond the edge of the circle; Nick had tricked her into dodging out of it. It had been, she had to grudgingly admit, clever in its simplicity; all alchemical torches had a simple dial built into them to control the light they gave off and he had somehow simply managed to turn it off remotely after first making it much brighter than usual. "Are your eyes alright?" Nick asked, "Those torches can get awfully bright."

Judy had no idea whether or not he meant the question sincerely or if he was mocking her, so she simply said, "I'm fine."

"Why don't we say turning the torch up is off-limits now, hmmm?" Nick said, "There's so much more that alchemy can do."

Judy simply nodded, vowing to pay more careful attention to what Nick was doing before they started. She told herself that she should have noticed that he had closed his eyes and figured that he would do something with the light. Frustratingly, she felt as though she had almost managed to touch him with her spear, despite being blind, and perhaps if she hadn't had the initial moment of disorientation she could have still won the point and their bout. Judy shook her head as she banished the thought and tried to focus on the next round.

True to his word, Nick did not again immediately make the torch glow impossibly white, his eyes remaining open as Judy tried to figure out what his next move would be. When she had struck him with her spear, she had been able to tell that he wasn't wearing armor underneath his coat, and when he had fallen to the ground there hadn't been anything she could hear jangling or rattling. Perhaps it meant that he didn't have any little vials on him, or perhaps he had sturdier ones than glass, but she wasn't ruling anything out.

If Nick had any kind of concern about what she would do, he didn't show it. In fact, he didn't even move as Judy approached slowly, trying to spot any movement that might signal an attempt at alchemy. She was sure that the semicircle he had drawn in the grit with his foot had been how he had manipulated the torch (the obvious alternative, that he could perform alchemy simply by thinking about it, was rather frightening), but he wasn't moving at all. Suddenly, though, he raised and then stamped one foot and Judy involuntarily squinted her eyes, not sure she could trust his promise not to make the torch too bright for her eyes to handle.

She charged at him, trying to move too fast for him to react, and as a result was nearly swallowed up by the earth. She had no other way of explaining it; there had been a brief rumble before her foot started sinking through the ground as though it was made of mud before the ground simply opened up before her, revealing a triangular hole about six feet deep and six feet wide with walls of impossibly smooth glass that glittered in the light of the alchemical torch. Judy barely checked her momentum in time, pushing her spear hard against the ground to avoid plunging into the pit, but she had no respite. Nick stamped his foot again and another pit simply appeared beneath her spear with just as little warning, the butt of the spear briefly sinking into the seemingly solid ground before it gave way. Judy pulled her spear up and rolled clumsily to the other side, narrowly avoiding yet another pit that had appeared.

How Nick had managed to create the pits so quickly was a puzzle that Judy simply couldn't figure out; she had seen that he needed time to perform the magic. Time, and a drawn-out pattern with—Judy gasped as the solution came to her. "You weren't blunting your sword, were you?" Judy asked as she jumped away from another pit.

Nick chuckled. "Very clever," he said, nodding approvingly, "No I was not."

He shrugged even as he stamped his foot again, opening up another pit. Nick was now standing on a narrow peninsula of ground that extended from the border of the arena, surrounded by a chasm six feet across. Each time he stamped his foot, another segment of the arena dropped away, slowly reducing how much space Judy had left; before too long there simply wouldn't be any way for her to reach him. "I was setting this little surprise up for you," he said.

"Good reflexes, by the way," Nick added as Judy avoided another pit opening up.

In retrospect, what Nick had done was obvious. While he had pretended to be using his alchemy to blunt his sword—which, Judy assumed, had not been sharp at the time he had unwrapped it—he had actually been turning the arena into a giant trap with his alchemy, which also explained why it had seemed to take so long. The design of the trap, a series of triangular pits, seemed to mirror the pattern of interlocking triangles on the piece of linen his sword had been wrapped in, leaving narrow little pieces of ground in between the deep pits. The way the tops of the pits worked, it seemed, was by converting the solid rock into sand, something that Nick seemed to be able to do nearly instantly when he stamped the ground. He had, she realized, turned the entire arena they were fighting in into a magic circle, and he was quite clearly capable of transmuting objects much faster than she had thought.

She had barely noticed it before, but every time a pit had opened the top had simply stopped reflecting light, becoming perfectly black, and then brightening again so fast that it had initially seemed like a trick of the light. Judy looked across the arena at where Nick was standing, and while she tried thinking of some way to get to him she stalled for time. "How do you do alchemy without the—" she began, but Nick cut her off with one wave of the paw.

"The candle and the water and all that?" he interrupted, "I've got the earth and the wind for my focus. Not having fire or water is a bit limiting for me—not that it'll help you—but turning stone into sand isn't really changing much."

He shrugged carelessly, and Judy understood; he was gradually reducing how much room she had to maneuver, and once she was in a pit it was all over. That wasn't the same thing as saying that he was winning, though, and Judy had the beginning of an idea. "You didn't show me you could transmute this quickly," she said, trying to gauge how well she could use what was left of the arena.

Some of the borders between the pits were walls only an inch or so thick, made of smooth glass topped with a gritty layer of dirt. Judy thought she could keep her balance and she knew she could either throw her spear or jump the six feet between Nick's little peninsula and the nearest wall, but once she committed to either one she'd have no second chance; it would be all or nothing. "Most mammals find alchemy more impressive if it looks like it takes a lot of effort and they get to see all the color changes," Nick replied, smiling crookedly, "That's just being a good merchant."

"You didn't have to lie," Judy said, even as she tried positioning herself.

It would have to be a quick sprint along the top of a narrow wall that made a number of geometrically precise turns followed by a flying leap, and all she needed was an opportunity. "It would have still been impressive," she continued; Nick had succeeded in goading her, and it seemed natural to try returning the favor.

"I never lied," Nick replied, "I might have exaggerated a little—"

"A little?" Judy retorted.

"Or possibly a lot," Nick acknowledged smoothly, "But it really is hard to get good results when you hurry alchemy along. You see how ragged the—"

As Nick spoke, he turned to gesture down at the edge of the nearest pit to him, and Judy seized the opportunity. She ran along the tiny balance beam that was the wall and made a flying leap, her spear point thrust forward before her. The expression on Nick's face—an almost comical O of surprise—lasted just long enough that Judy felt sure she was going to make it. Nick, however, rolled out of the way and into the nearest pit and Judy realized the flaw in her plan too late. She had only considered whether or not Nick would be able to get in a blow before she could; she had figured that the only options would be that either she would get him or he would get her. Without Nick there to collide into, however, there was nothing stopping her from painfully hitting the ground and once more sliding out of the arena.

Judy tried digging in her nails and her spear as she slid but it did nothing but make her dirty, and she stopped about three inches outside the ring. "Your point," Judy said.

After a series of rather colorful curses that echoed slightly in the pit Nick was trapped in, he managed to pull himself up on the lip of the pit he was in, and once he was out he blinked at her. "Yes it is," he said, but he didn't sound mocking.

Rather, he seemed genuinely surprised that she wasn't taking the opportunity to cheat; it would have been rather easy to stand up, turn around, and use her spear to poke down at him in the pit where he likely would have been at her mercy. "Well," Nick said after a long moment, "I better fix this up before our next round."

He gestured vaguely at the pockmarked arena, which outside the heat of battle was a remarkable microcosm of the Outer Baronies. The glass-lined pits Nick had created as traps were strikingly similar to the craters that dotted the wastelands, full of milky and broken glass, and Judy supposed that if he didn't fix the pits they might eventually resemble them even more closely albeit at a smaller scale. Time might make the grass crack and fall apart, and the grit carried by the wind might turn the glass translucent, and some future traveler might not even be able to tell the difference. Only the two of them would know; it would be one of those pointless little secrets they would take to their graves. "Assuming you want to go another round, of course," Nick added, and his voice was full of its old teasing quality again, "There's no shame in quitting."

"Yes there is," Judy replied, although she couldn't help but smile.

"That's the spirit," Nick said, and Judy noticed that he was panting.

Perhaps he had exaggerated how much time and effort alchemy really took from him, but it obviously wasn't completely effortless. Creating the trap, and then activating it, had clearly taken its toll, and Judy wondered how many tricks he had left. Even if he did manage to win, though, Judy was sure she wouldn't have to worry about earning Nick's respect; she was pretty sure she already had it. "Come on," Judy said, trying to hide a smile, "Stop stalling."

Nick chuckled and set his palms against the edge of the arena. "It  _is_  easier with my paws, by the way," he said, and Judy nodded seriously.

"I'll make sure I take advantage of that," she said, and Nick laughed.

Something between them had changed over the course of the four rounds they had fought; somehow Nick felt more like a friend than he did like a responsibility or a traveling companion. As Nick repaired the arena, teasing her for being a taskmaster, Judy couldn't help but feel that Nick felt the same.

* * *

**Author's Notes:**

Although it was tempting to put in a nod to "The Princess Bride" by having Nick switch from wielding his sword with his left paw to his right, I chose to keep Nick in this story left-pawed. In real-world fencing, being left-handed is actually a decent advantage at the lower levels of the sport. There's no intrinsic advantage to using one hand over the other, but since only about 10% of the population is left-handed it means that left-handed fencers have much more experience fighting right-handed fencers than right-handed fencers have fighting left-handed fencers. I've seen amateur left-handed fencers clean up at épée tournaments even when there were technically superior right-handed fencers; it can be difficult for right-handed fencers to adjust their form against left-handed fencers. Conversely, one of the more amusing épée bouts I've seen was between two left-handed fencers who both had no idea how to handle fighting someone who used the same form that they did since they had never gone up against another left-handed fencer until they faced each other.

Judy's fencing instructor from her academy days is named after a left-handed fencer who I consider myself very fortunate to have known; he was a wonderful teacher and despite his age still an excellent fencer. He was also fond of striking the forearm or elbow of any right-handed fencer who went up against him and forgot to adjust their technique for fighting a lefty.

I did my best to make the work with spear and sword accurate to how the weapons were historically used. After her first point, on her second advance, Judy brings her spear into the high guard position, which is particularly useful for rapidly dropping the point to make a fast strike with a great deal of power behind it. Nick's response is a flèche, a technique in fencing in which the rear leg crosses over the front, which requires a little explanation. In the major Western fencing styles—sabre, foil, and épée—the fencer's positioning is generally as Nick's is described. The fencer holds themselves with one foot (on the same side of the body as their weapon hand) leading and the other trailing, the torso turned to face forward along the leading leg. Standing like this allows the weight of the fencer to be held over the trailing leg, providing excellent stability, and advances or retreats are made with careful footwork to avoid the distance between the legs from growing too large, which threatens the balance. In a normal attack, the trailing leg provides striking power, but in a flèche attack the fencer uses their front leg to propel themselves forward after the initial impulse, crossing over their legs as they advance by switching their trailing leg to their leading leg.

Notably, the flèche technique is banned in sabre fencing (which prohibits the fencers from crossing their legs over; all advances and retreats must be done with the leading and trailing feet remaining as leading or trailing) and is only allowed in foil and épée. However, all three modern fencing styles are distinctly sports nowadays more so than valid fighting methods, and while Nick's strike would be cheating in sport fencing in a real battle there weren't exactly strictly followed rules.

Judy's response is to continue her strike from high guard to go into Olber, a spear positioning with the tip downward, and sweeping.

Once alchemy becomes involved, all bets are off, but I did follow the rules I established; I think it's pretty in-character for Nick to have deliberately put on a show earlier in this story at the same time he hides his true ability.

As always, thanks for reading! I'm sorry if you find the cliffhanger disappointing, but I thought the pacing worked best splitting the conclusion out. I would love to hear what you thought.


	10. Chapter 10

"Captain General?" Cerdo's voice floated into Bogo's awareness with the distinct air of a mammal who had already tried and failed to get his attention.

Bogo blinked as he pulled his attention away from the files spread across his desk. In the end, Alfonso had given him the names of four blood magicians he thought to have the skills—and the lack of scruples—that would be necessary to manufacture a quauhxicalli from the very life of a cheetah. As to how promising those leads were, Bogo would have to wait to hear back from his officers; one of the sad truths of being the captain general was that he simply didn't have many opportunities to go into the field anymore. Even visiting Alfonso in prison had likely raised a few eyebrows as some would doubtlessly take it as an insult that he hadn't delegated the task. Certainly there would be nobles whispering that it was a sign that he didn't trust his top generals, and as little as Bogo cared what the useless and pampered members of the upper class thought he couldn't afford to alienate his actual officers.

It was why, not even an hour after visiting Alfonso, he was back in his office in the Royal Palace, reviewing files as others were actually doing the work of investigating the blood magicians and the would-be assassin. Bogo repressed a sigh as he swept the files together and looked across his desk at Cerdo, who was standing there with a somewhat anxious look upon his face. Part of that might have been Bogo's office, which had been deliberately set up to be intimidating by the first mammal to hold the office in a tradition too powerful for Bogo to break no matter how much he detested it. The desk was positively enormous, so large that even Bogo had to use an elevated chair—which seemed to him uncomfortably close to a throne—to see over it, and with his own natural size taken into account it meant he absolutely towered over most mammals who approached the desk even while sitting. The desk had been carved out of a single block of black volcanic stone, the top of it polished to glassy smoothness while the sides were covered with elaborate engravings depicting the founding principles of the kingdom's laws in the pictograms of the Old Tongue.

Behind him was a window with what Bogo knew to be an incredible view of the palace's grounds, as was to be expected considering that his office was about halfway up the oldest central tower. Sometime long ago it might have been possible, on a clear day, to see all the way to the Inner Wall, but the rise of buildings over the centuries in the Inner Baronies meant that his view ended shortly after the palace grounds ended. Something Bogo's predecessor had told him, immediately before vacating the office, was to remember that his view of the city told him almost nothing of how well or poorly it was running. It was an observation that Bogo had found to be completely true; even with the attempt on the princess's life mere hours in the past the ebb and flow of mammals below, tiny as ants, didn't seem to have changed any. None of the great towers were smoldering ruins, none of the distant banners of merchants hawking their wares from countless stalls and carts lining the streets had lost their luster; in short there was no sign to show that the city had narrowly avoided what would have been one of the greatest catastrophes to ever befall it.

It was a philosophical bent that Bogo's thoughts seemed to keep being inordinately drawn to, a sort of rumination on the seeming indifference of the city and his own powerlessness to actually change anything, and with greater effort than it had taken to sweep the surface of his desk into order he pushed the thoughts aside and answered the waiting pig. "Yes, Lord Cerdo?" Bogo asked, doing what he thought was a decent enough job in giving his words a pleasant tone, "How may I help you?"

Cerdo grimaced, the shuffling of his hooves on the polished marble floor making delicate little clicks, and Bogo was surprised to find that the pig actually seemed embarrassed. "I... Well, I wanted to apologize, first, Captain General," he said, and Bogo thought he saw a faint red flush coloring the pig's already rosy pink cheeks and ears through his nearly non-existent covering of fur, "Our princess was nearly assassinated, and the last thing I said before it happened..."

He trailed off, but Bogo didn't need him to continue. Cerdo had been smugly asking why Bogo was worried about a falling crime rate, seemingly totally convinced that there was absolutely no cause for concern. Whether the embarrassment Cerdo felt was because he had been so clearly wrong, or simply the result of his political rivals in the form of Corazón and Cencerro almost certainly coming out ahead of him in the queen's eyes, Bogo wasn't going to question it. Bogo's distaste for political games didn't blind him to the realities of life in the royal court; grudges had no place in the City Guard, where impartiality was of paramount importance to its very stability. If he went after every single noble who irritated him, as some captain generals had in the past, he would end up just like them—the head of an army with a completely insufficient budget, staffed by totally inadequate officers, and at the mercy of the private guards that the wealthiest of nobles maintained for their own protection. Bogo pushed down his very real and very petty desire to make Cerdo squirm and simply said, "Your presence here shows you've rethought those words."

Cerdo looked up at Bogo, his eyes brightening at the life line he had just been provided, and eagerly nodded. "Precisely, precisely!" he said, his heavy jowls wobbling at how emphatically he spoke, "I wished to volunteer my own resources to assist your investigation—and the City Guard—in any way I can. I have nearly two hundred guards of my own, all of them highly trained and some even veterans of your noble institution, that I beg you to allow me to place at your disposal."

Bogo sat back in his chair, the old wood of which groaned in complaint as he shifted position; the chair was one of the things he would have loved to have changed about his office, if only he could. Traditions were, however, sometimes too strong to overcome, which made Cerdo's offer all the more surprising. It was very nearly an immutable fact, such as how the sun would rise in the East or how an alchemist would be self-important, that nobles would not volunteer their own personal guards for service to the city. There were always excuses, of course; four years ago when there had been a rash of bandits striking travelers in the Middle Baronies, all the nobles had put on performances that would have done an acting troupe proud. They would have been happy to spare soldiers, but they had to protect their own caravans of supplies, or the guards were already engaged in construction projects, or they couldn't afford the expense. The only excuse Bogo had actually believed had been the one that came from the head of the Tochtli Barony, who claimed not to have a private guard; it was typical of rabbits to expect others to protect them. Cerdo's excuse, as Bogo recalled, had been that his soldiers didn't have the training to stop bandits unless they were issued the same sort of torcs as the official City Guard. Otherwise, Cerdo had claimed, his soldiers would simply die themselves for each bandit that was struck down.

As the queen was not so foolish as to overlook the obvious problem with allowing the various lords and ladies that made up the nobility to have private armies at their disposal that could strike with impunity, Bogo had devised an alternate solution by forcing the nobles to contribute either money or conscripts. It was not a decision that had made him popular; no matter how much Bogo himself pointedly did not show grudges he was sure it was the source of many against him personally, and Cerdo had been one of the mammals most vocally in favor of the City Guard being reduced in size once the bandit threat was no longer quite as urgent. Corazón, by contrast, had deftly outmaneuvered Bogo's desire for worthy members of the City Guard by pushing for his ludicrous scheme to allow mammals from species that had not previously been called on to serve, allowing the lion to keep the most useful members of his own personal guard and sending pitiful soldiers as conscripts in their place.

For Cerdo to volunteer his entire personal guard, Bogo could only guess that the pig was attempting a particularly bold move in the hopes of getting in the queen's good graces again, as she was unlikely to forget that he had pushed against the very sort of expansion of the City Guard that might have prevented the attempt on the princess's life. It was certainly unprecedented in Bogo's experience, but he wasn't about to give Cerdo a chance to change his mind. Perhaps he'd even be lucky and other nobles would fall over themselves trying to copy Cerdo's example; there was no telling what Bogo could accomplish with another thousand or so guard mammals. "I appreciate your offer," Bogo said, "And I accept. Have your guards sent to the central garrison at once."

Bogo pulled a blank piece of paper towards himself, but before he could pick up his fine silver fountain pen Cerdo pulled a piece of parchment from an interior pocket and slid it across the glossy surface of Bogo's desk. "I've already prepared what I believe to be a suitable order," Cerdo said, and Bogo quickly scanned the text.

No matter what else he could say about Cerdo, the pig's writing was beautiful and perfectly legible, and the order ran only a few simple lines. Cerdo was transferring the contracts for two hundred soldiers to the city as well as a sum of money so enormous that it would be sufficient to pay for their wages for at least five years. Cerdo had already signed it with an elaborate flourish, and Bogo added his own far simpler signature to the page. Bogo pulled the bell cord that hung near his desk for alerting a guard that they were needed in his office and then turned back to Cerdo. "Was there anything else, Lord Cerdo?" he asked.

"Only to ask if there is anything else—absolutely anything at all—that I may help with to find the mammal responsible," Cerdo said, and his words were rather solemn.

After Bogo had dismissed the lord in the awkward dance of politeness that always seemed to happen when Cerdo was involved and a guard had arrived to take the freshly signed order to the central garrison, he turned his attention back to the files that had been pulled at his request. Unlike alchemists, who were virtually entirely under the rigid control of a single powerful guild, blood magicians were more loosely aligned with at least half a dozen guilds. The guilds of blood magicians were, however, somewhat more cooperative with the City Guard than the Alchemist Guild tended to be, and they kept meticulous records on all of their members. For each of the four mammals Alfonso had named, Bogo had detailed summaries of their education, specialties, shops, and even their earnings, supplemented by the information the City Guard maintained.

Unfortunately, each of the four mammals struck Bogo as being about equal in terms of their potential for having been the creator of the quauhxicalli that had been used by the llama in his attack. There was a tiger who maintained a shop in Phoenix who specialized in quauhxicallis made from feline donors, but there was absolutely nothing either in the file her guild maintained on her or in the City Guard's own records to even suggest at a motive. In contrast, another of Alfonso's leads was a bear who had been questioned by the City Guard several times concerning anti-monarchist views, but she had never been formally arrested and her guild's documentation showed her specialty was quauhxicallis made from birds. The third mammal was a weasel who had served a jail sentence and nearly been dropped from his guild after being accused of selling counterfeit quauhxicallis that didn't quite have the advertised effects, but even if he had the moral flexibility to craft a quauhxicalli that required the sacrifice of a life he didn't officially have the required skill per his guild's assessment. The last lead Alfonso had provided was for a wolf who had served a brief prison sentence and been blacklisted from all of the major blood magic guilds following a disastrous attempt at healing a patient who would likely have been better served by an alchemist, after which he had moved to Phoenix.

As the weasel lived in the Inner Baronies and the bear in the Middle Baronies, Bogo anticipated that his officers would quickly have updates for him to add more information to the rather thin files that he had. The tiger and the wolf were the two leads it would take the longest to follow up on; although Bogo had dispatched a messenger hawk as quickly as he could to Phoenix with orders for the garrison there to investigate the suspects, it would take days for a response to come no matter what the cocky mouse rider had promised. Considering how much the diminutive messenger had charged, citing the dangers of flying his bird all the way to Phoenix, Bogo had found himself in the rare situation of actually agreeing with Corazón about something; the City Guard needed its own messenger birds.

Bogo frowned as the thought crossed his mind, absently tapping at the surface of his desk with his pen. He trusted Alfonso's information only so much as he believed that the shrew didn't have any personal involvement in the attempted murder of the princess and that the shrew hadn't deliberately withheld anything from him. Considering that the four mammals Alfonso had named didn't seem to have any obvious connection to one of Alfonso's rivals it suggested that the shrew still knew quite a bit that the City Guard either didn't or that well-placed bribes were keeping from reaching official files. However, Alfonso had moved in rather different circles than the ones that Bogo moved in, and he had never rubbed elbows with the most highly placed of nobles.

It was entirely possible that Alfonso's leads would prove totally fruitless, particularly if a noble was the mastermind, and somehow Corazón simply felt suspicious in a way Bogo couldn't put a finger on. For as long as Bogo had known the lion, Corazón seemed to have climbed from one political victory to the next, always a step ahead of his rivals and always being proved right. Although Corazón had had the good graces not to brag about it when they had spoken in the Hall of Ancestors, Bogo's conversation with Cerdo had made it clear that the lion had scored yet another win. The case for expanding the City Guard had been made quite clear with the failed assassination, and Bogo suspected that it would elevate Corazón even higher in the queen's eye. High enough, perhaps, to finally arrange a marriage between Corazón's son and the princess—or maybe even between the queen and Corazón himself.

Bogo rolled the end of his pen across his desk with increasing speed as he considered another new angle. Perhaps the assassination had never been intended to succeed; perhaps the mastermind had always intended for the llama to fail even if the llama hadn't been aware of that. If Bogo had been ever so slightly slower in responding, would Corazón have been the hero of the hour? It was possible; although the lion was no blood magician himself, he was fond of wearing expensive quauhxicallis at his belt in a silent yet ostentatious display of wealth, and the llama would have been forced to pass him on his way to the princess. Bogo pulled the piece of paper he had intended to use for drafting his orders for Cerdo's guards and carefully wrote a note: "Investigate Corazón's connections to blood magicians."

Somehow, the act of writing the words down brought with them the same simple pleasure Bogo remembered from his days walking the beat of Zootopia. There was nothing quite like that feeling of solving a problem, and while he certainly didn't have any evidence of Corazón's guilt it was well worth looking into. After Bogo had sealed the message, addressed it to a trusted general, and dispatched it with another member of the City Guard, he sat quietly considering his other leads. Although the llama's torc had been somewhat mangled by the force with which it hit the ground, it had still been possible to read the mammal's name off of it. Jorge de Cuvier was, so far as the city's official records could tell, an absolute nobody. He was thirty-two years old, had dutifully paid his taxes every year since coming of age, and had never had any kind of run-in with the City Guard. His tax records showed him to work as an unskilled stonemason, where he had earned enough to live a modest life in a small apartment. Jorge de Cuvier had never married or had any children, and from official records seemed to be the sort of mammal who made up the bedrock of Zootopia. Bogo looked forward to hearing what his officers interviewing Cuvier's neighbors and boss would say about him; there had been no mistaking the look of anger and hate twisting the llama's face as he charged at the princess and it seemed impossible that he had managed to completely hide his feelings from the mammals who knew him best.

Bogo was still waiting to hear back from the court's blood magician as to whether any additional information could be divined from the llama's remains, which seemed to be the running refrain. All he could do was wait, and he hated it. Bogo heaved a sigh no one else was around to hear, pushing himself upright from his overly ostentatious chair, and turned to look out his window. The palace grounds were a riot of color, carefully chosen plants tended to by the best gardeners in the entire city-state forming artful patterns too far below to make out individual leaves or flowers. The additional guards Bogo had ordered posted, even with their red tunics and gleaming breastplates, weren't visible from where he observed, and Bogo thought again of the illusion of stability. It was not a thought that the queen was likely to appreciate, and Bogo resolved not to mention it to her.

It had been several hours since he had last seen her or the princess, however, and lacking any action he could take personally to find the mastermind Bogo decided to visit them. The princess especially deserved a sign that what had almost happened was a fluke; she was still, in Bogo's mind, too young to fully realize the truth of how fragile her world really was and needed the reassurance. Or maybe he was giving her less credit than she deserved. Certainly Bogo's own daughter had frequently surprised him with how much she understood when she had been a calf, and she hadn't been the future heir to all of Zootopia. Bogo felt a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth as he remembered the time when his daughter was twelve and—"Captain General?" a voice called, interrupting his thoughts.

The smile had vanished from Bogo's face by the time he turned around and faced one of the mammals he wanted to see least. There, framed in the enormous doorway to his office such that she appeared even smaller than usual, was the Lady Alba Cencerro. "I was wondering," the ewe said, holding up one hoof with her fingers less than an inch apart, "If I could have just a little moment of your time?"

Bogo settled himself into his own chair, ignoring its creaks, and gestured at the chair on the other side of his desk. "By all means," he said, resigning himself to yet another political matter.

* * *

**Author's Notes:**

Over on FanFiction.net, a reader using the handle Deathsmallcaps said that they drew art of Princess Isabel based on this story. This is hugely flattering for me, and I'm amazed that Deathsmallcaps went to such efforts based on something I wrote; from the description alone I can tell they put a lot of thought into how to draw her. Unfortunately, FanFiction.net's anti-spam policy ate the link to the image that was provided, leaving only the following text:

gallery/1fWj6PG

If Deathsmallcaps or someone else can provide me with the full link, I'd be incredibly grateful and I'll definitely link to it!

As previously mentioned, the Tochtli Barony is where this version of Judy comes from and is located in the Middle Baronies; I think it's pretty in character for her parents not to have a massive personal guard the way richer nobles do.

Aztec writing is an interesting topic, particularly because there's still debate as to whether it was a complete form of writing or not. Unfortunately, the vast majority of Aztec writing from before the time of Spanish colonization was destroyed, most of it by Spanish clergy members, and very little remains for study. What is known, however, is that the language used pictograms and ideograms (that is, pictures that visually depict the concept that they stand for) and did not have an alphabet the way English or most Western languages do. However, in a manner similar to some Asian languages, some words were represented by glyphs for other words that are pronounced the same way; for example the way to represent the name of the city Tenochtitlan was through the symbol for stone (te-tl) and the symbol for cactus (nochtli). Surviving works written in the Aztec system used for the spoken language frequently seem to be mnemonics for lists of information rather than the transcribed forms of sentences or paragraphs.

All that can be said for sure is that Aztecs did at the very least have a proto-writing system that could encode information in a pictorial fashion, and a growing body of research shows that they had a fairly sophisticated system for doing so, even to the point of having visual representations of spoken puns and wordplay. That's a lot of words to say that it would indeed be possible to carve, using the Aztec system, a representation of the legal system into the sides of a desk.

Fountain pens were first made sometime around the 10th century, but a number of difficulties prevented them from becoming practical until about the middle of the 19th century. Most notably there were difficulties with creating a suitable ink that wouldn't clog up the pen or cause it to corrode. I imagine that in the universe of this story, however, the greater control over matter that alchemy allows would make the mass adoption of fountain pens easier than it was in our world.

This chapter indicates that there are messenger hawks in this setting that have small mammals riding them. I figured that it made sense considering the complete lack of anything analogous to telephones or radios. The possibility of riding a bird seems to me like it'd be one of the greatest perks of being a small mammal in Zootopia, although it's probably safe to assume that comparatively few mammals would actually get to do so. Or might even want to, considering that, unlike a human riding a horse in the real world, a mouse riding a falcon might have to deal with his ride being both capable of and inclined towards eating him.

Out of the mammals that Alfonso named, the bear having a history of anti-monarch sentiment is a small joke on my part, referencing the common symbolic association of bears with Russia, a country that does indeed have something of a history of opposing monarchs. For the others, I won't say anything now, but there are probably some reasonable conclusions that can be drawn.

The llama's name being Jorge de Cuvier is a nod to Georges Cuvier, the French naturalist who first taxonomically categorized llamas separately from alpacas. His living in an apartment may seem kind of modern, but in fact apartments have a long history in Mesoamerica. The city of Teotihuacan, which was likely first established more than two thousand years ago, shows evidence that virtually the entire population of the city lived in apartments in a manner rather similar to most modern cities. I imagine that, particularly for the Inner Baronies where the buildings are the most densely packed, this is also the case, with only nobles and the extremely wealthy capable of affording large plots of land.

"Alba" means "sunrise" or "dawn" in Spanish and is commonly used as a female name, making it seem appropriate for this version of Bellwether. Bogo not being particularly happy to see her is, perhaps, a universal constant even in an AU work.

As always, thanks for reading! I'd love to know what you thought!


	11. Chapter 11

While Nick was repairing the damage he had done to their arena, Judy considered how she could get one more strike in. There was no doubt in her mind that she was significantly more skilled with a weapon than Nick was, but she was just as sure that even if he kept his promise not to make pits or blinding flashes of light again, there had to be another alchemical trick up his sleeve. Figuratively  _or_  literally, she supposed, watching Nick's paws closely as he worked; he was still wearing his now torn and dust-stained embroidered coat, which she remained highly suspicious of. Unfortunately, it wasn't as though he needed to have something hidden away in an interior pocket; he had demonstrated repeatedly his ability to use the very circle of their arena as a means of focusing his power, and there wasn't anything she could do about that...

Judy was hit by a sudden flash of inspiration as she realized she had been thinking about it all wrong. The entire way Nick fought was by being tricky and clever. Letting him fight like that was only begging to be outsmarted, to react to whatever he did too late to make a difference. But, she thought, and there was a slow smile spreading across her face that she hoped he hadn't noticed, all that meant was that she would have to be trickier.

A moment later, when Nick had finished restoring the arena to its original smoothness, any traces of a smile had vanished from Judy's face; she had set her jaw with deliberation, willing her gaze to be as fiercely tough as possible. Judging from what other mammals had said in the academy she suspected that it might not be a very intimidating look, particularly for larger mammals, but if Nick saw any signs of her intent he gave no indication of it himself. "Ready?" he called as he took his position, briefly dusting his paws together before leaning to grab his sabre.

"Ready," Judy called, and in the brief moment when his attention was distracted by picking up his weapon she made her move.

She was holding her spear upright in her right paw, the butt of it resting against the ground, and she maneuvered it a few inches back. Per the rules they had agreed to, neither one of them could leave the arena, but they had never set any limits on their weapons, which she was going to shamelessly take advantage of. The gritty dirt of the Outer Baronies smoothly parted at her spear's touch, and although she couldn't look back to confirm it she knew that she had broken the circle. Judy didn't expect to completely prevent Nick from using his alchemy; he had, after all, said that the circle was only a focusing tool, but if it took him even so much as an extra second or two to use his power it would be too late for him. "On three," Nick called, "One, two, three!"

The moment his count ended Judy lunged, the familiar heft of her spear providing a comforting weight as she let its tip guide her towards Nick. Nick himself wasn't waiting to react; the instant his count ended he dragged one foot through a half-circle and gestured upwards with his right paw as though he was trying to lift a heavy weight.

Nothing happened.

His eyes caught the light of the alchemical torch as they went wide, and raw triumph seemed to flow through Judy's veins, a feeling too intense and pure for thoughts or words. She had him helplessly outmaneuvered; her aim was perfectly aligned to slip past his guard and catch him full in the chest with her spear's blunt tip. The remaining steps between them shortened quicker than seemed possible and Judy let loose an inarticulate cry of victory. Nick was twisting away, but not fast enough; he dropped his sword in his haste to dodge, his paws tucking against his sides as he tried to make himself a smaller target.

Judy easily changed her angle of attack, the tip of her spear still heading towards his center of mass with an inevitable finality to it. Judy's focus on Nick had become so absolute that there was nothing else in the world. The gritty dust of the ground and the dark sky had fallen completely away until there was only Nick before her. In an instant that felt as though it lasted an eternity she saw him as though it was for the first time. Every strand of his fur, glowing orange in the pale silvery light of the alchemical torch, seemed to stand out in perfect relief. Judy saw the strength in his limbs, beneath his dusty coat and trousers, and the beautiful embroidery only emphasized his lean muscles as the tight fabric caught the light. It was Nick's eyes, though, that seemed the most transformed; his pupils were full of pinpoints of starlight and his vividly green irises gleamed. The surprise had gone out of his face so close to his loss; his angular features had resolved themselves into what looked like his typically smug expression. The thought that something wasn't quite right had just begun to make its way through Judy's mind before Nick winked and was gone.

Judy's spear slammed into something so hard and unyielding that her paws went instantly numb and she nearly dropped it as she rolled to the side. Where Nick had been was only a raised bulge in the ground, his abandoned sword resting at its base. If it weren't for the spot her spear had struck, which had scuffed away some of the gritty dirt and revealed what looked like iron, it would have looked simply like a bubble in the ground. "Very clever," Nick's voice came from the direction of the bubble; it was somewhat muffled but perfectly audible for her ears, "Breaking the arena's circle almost worked, too."

To Judy's ears he sounded particularly cheerful, but she thought there was a ragged edge to his voice, as though he was growing tired. She ignored the throbbing from her paws as she carefully stood upright, her spear pointing forward, and strained her eyes and her ears to their limits. Judy took a cautious step away from the bubble, and as she did so caught a better look at the structure hidden under the dirt; it looked almost like a flower bud that hadn't opened, except much larger and made out of metal. That did explain, at least, why it had hurt so badly to hit it, and Judy tried to force down the tremors in her paws from the shock of the blow, voicing a silent thanks to the gods she hadn't broken both of her wrists in the attempt. "You made that little dome ahead of time, didn't you?" Judy asked, carefully sidestepping as she tried to find an avenue of attack.

Without a quauhxicalli, Judy knew that she simply didn't have the strength to do anything about the little protective bubble Nick had made himself, and she had left all of hers behind in her tent before their bout started. Unfortunately, there didn't seem to be any weak spot in the dome; although it was somewhat difficult to tell beneath the layer of grit that covered it, there were no apparent holes and Judy doubted she could fit so much as a whisker in one of the seams. "I did, yes," Nick's voice came back, still from within the dome, and Judy thought her suspicion that Nick was wearing himself out was confirmed.

She could hear him—faintly, but distinctly—panting with exertion, but it also sounded like he was moving. "How'd you do it without the arena's circle?" Judy asked, "Willpower?"

She gave the last word a sarcastic tinge she thought he would appreciate, and was rewarded with a chuckle that sounded as though it wasn't quite coming from inside the dome anymore. Rather, he seemed to be creeping underground underneath her feet, and Judy forced herself still. There were three other bubbles in the ground like the one he had disappeared under, arranged in an off-centered square, and Judy thought there must be some connection between them. Whatever other skills Nick had, Judy knew that his hearing couldn't be as good as hers, and she wasn't going to make it easy for him. He didn't have his sabre anymore, which meant he was down to his alchemy alone. Which was still a tremendous advantage, but Judy pushed the thought aside. "We could go with that," Nick said agreeably, "It sounds suitably dramatic, don't you think?"

After a moment, when Judy hadn't responded, still straining with her ears to try to pin Nick down, he continued. "My coat's lining is embroidered on the inside. Call it a spare for em—"

His voice cut off suddenly as Judy plunged her spear into the ground, where it encountered brief resistance after the first six inches before sliding in so smoothly she nearly lost her grip. Judy knew instantly, though, that she had missed, but before she could pull her spear back she felt Nick grab it. She pulled hard with both paws, and he suddenly let go; she tumbled backwards, landing painfully, but she had her spear and Nick still had no weapon.

As Judy jumped to her feet, she realized that wasn't quite right; there was something dreadfully  _wrong_  with her spear she had never even imagined possible. The spear's shaft was made out of a strong, lightweight metal, and although Judy had seen spears dent or even crack in training she had never seen a spear do what hers was doing. Near the center of the shaft, where Nick must have touched it, it had become incredibly shiny, but there were wispy fibers of metal coming off of it. More seriously, the shaft was starting to bend; as Judy looked at her spear the bottom half of the shaft simply fell off. It looked almost as though it had rusted, but the metal wasn't  _supposed_ to rust, and even if it could she had never seen anything give way so quickly.

Judy banged the decaying end of the half she was still holding against the ground, feeling the metal weakly folding and peeling, but otherwise it seemed solid enough if obviously not nearly as long as it had been. She strained her ears again, and caught the sound of Nick's breathing, which was increasingly rapid. His little trick might have ruined her weapon, but it had clearly cost him a not-insignificant amount of effort; she'd just have to try stabbing through the ground again.

She could hear Nick moving slowly underground, heading toward one of the other bubbles he had made, and she froze. She had to be tricky, she reminded herself, not just try the same thing again and give him a second chance to destroy her spear. If she wanted to take him by surprise, she knew she'd have to fake him out. No matter how much every instinct protested that she needed to spin around and be ready to face him, she deliberately kept her back to the bubble, listening as hard as she could. She turned slowly, as though she was keeping an eye on the bubble he had disappeared into, and then it happened.

She heard a strange metallic squealing coming from behind her and forced herself still, nothing moving but her nose, until she was sure Nick had committed to his attack. She spun around and saw instantly that she had underestimated him as he charged out of what looked for all the world like a metal flower in full bloom. She had thought he might try hitting her with some kind of alchemical projectile, or even make a crude replacement sword, but he hadn't. Nick had, in fact, made himself a spear, and although it was nothing more than a long pole with a blunted end it was still longer than her spear had been even before he had somehow made it corrode into two pieces.

Her remaining piece of spear was pathetically short, barely long enough to block his charge, and in a moment of instinct Judy didn't. When she thought about it later, she would think that it was because there was something about the way that he carried his own spear that showed that he wasn't very experienced with the weapon, some subtlety of positioning or his angle of attack. Judy threw her remaining bit of spear aside and charged at him, effortlessly dodging a clumsy strike until she was too close for him to do anything, the end of his spear already past her. She brought her fist up, and while Nick tried twisting away all it did was bring his head lower; she caught him square in the eye.

The fight instantly went out of Nick as he fell flat on his back, and as he fell his tail entangled itself in Judy's legs and brought her down on top of him, the top of her head painfully striking against the bottom of his jaw hard enough to send bursts of stars through her vision. Both of them cried out in pain nearly simultaneously, although Nick colorfully invoked Tepēyōllōtl's name in a way that nonetheless seemed more sincere than the thanks he had given to Macuilxōchitl after his gambling wins.

Judy pushed her paws against Nick's chest as she scrabbled forward on top of him until she was straddling his neck, trying to see into his face even as the tips of his ears tickled the bottoms of her feet. "Are you alright?" she asked, trying to ignore the pulsating pain in her own head, "Oh, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean—"

Nick was panting, his tongue lolling out one side of his mouth, and Judy could feel his arm twitch weakly against her. "No, no," he said, sounding more than a little dazed, "We never said punching wasn't allowed."

He sucked air in between his teeth as he gingerly reached across Judy and felt at his eye, his expression contorting into a grimace that exposed his many sharp teeth. "If anyone says you hit like a bunny, do me a favor and actually hit them," Nick said, and there was some of his usual charm in his voice again, "I want to see the reaction."

Judy felt none of the triumph she had just a moment before Nick had vanished into his little metal dome; any sense of victory was completely lost in how obviously she had hurt him. It was only supposed to be a sparring match, but what if she had blinded him? Hitting a mammal in the eye was always dangerous; she could have just tried going for his chest even after his head had become the perfect target. "I'm really sorry. Here, let me look at it," she said, and she brushed away the paw he had clamped over his eye.

Judy leaned over his head, bringing her own face so close to his that she could feel every warm and damp puff of his breath ruffling the fur of her cheek. Nick's uninjured eye was fixed on her face, and the other had already started swelling shut. Judy didn't think she had done any permanent damage, but the knot of guilt in her stomach refused to loosen. "I'm sorry," she said again, and her voice was thick.

Nick awkwardly patted at her back. "You're an interesting mammal, Ensign Carrots. And, if you'll forgive me saying so, a heavy one. So if you wouldn't mind..." he said, and there was something in both his voice and in the expression in his face that Judy couldn't quite place.

The words sounded exactly like him, but there was something about his tone that wasn't quite right, something beneath his perpetual good natured teasing. Before she could pursue the thought any further, however, Judy realized she had been sitting with her legs wrapped around the wonderfully soft and fluffy fur of Nick's neck (and wasn't  _that_ an odd thing to be thinking about in the moment?) with her gaze focused on Nick's face for a moment that had likely drawn out a little too long. She hastily stumbled away from him, feeling her ears burning in embarrassment. Nick pushed himself heavily to his feet, his footfalls plodding as he walked over to his discarded sabre and scooped it up. "A wager's a wager," he said, as he presented it hilt-first to Judy, "I can adjust it for you tomorrow."

He chuckled weakly and added, "I'm going to sleep like the dead tonight."

Judy didn't particularly care about the sword and made no motion to grab it. "Do you need any help with your eye? Are you hurt anywhere else?" she asked.

Nick waved one paw in what would have likely come across as a careless gesture if he had done a better job of modulating the energy he put into it; his arm fell lazily to his side instead. "I'll manage," he said, "I've got some incomplete philosopher's stones I can use."

Judy remembered seeing the distinctive glow of incomplete stones in Nick's heavy bag of belongings, and the anxiety in her gut loosened a degree. "What about you?" he asked, looking her up and down with his head tilted so his one good eye was focused on her, "Any injuries?"

She shook her head vigorously. "I'm fine," Judy added hastily.

There was a brief silence, broken only by the mournful howling of wind across the wastelands, before Nick held out his sword again. "Come on, take it," he urged, "You won it fair and square."

It really was a beautiful blade; even covered in grit the care that had gone into its creation was obvious, but it was no more tempting than when he had first presented it. "No," she said, "I shouldn't have—"

"Take it," Nick urged, "You're going to need a sabre anyway once you make captain, right? I'd like it to be one of mine. Word of mouth is the best advertising, you know."

Judy reluctantly closed one paw around the grip, which was too wide for her to hold comfortably, and took it from him. "Fine," she said, "But only if you let me give you that favor."

Nick chuckled again, and there seemed to be some of his former strength in it. "Well who am I to argue with Ensign Tochtli of the City Guard?" he asked, spreading his paws out.

He staggered off in the direction of his tent, pausing to call back over his shoulder. "I can fix your spear tomorrow, too. You probably don't want to touch it again tonight. Oh, and wash your paws."

"What?" Judy said; she was more than a little surprised at the seeming non sequitur.

"I overdid it when I weakened it," Nick said, "It was  _supposed_  to break when you blocked my spear thrust."

He shrugged his shoulders, as though it was any kind of answer. Besides confirming the obvious—that alchemy had been involved—he hadn't really answered her unasked question. "I did tell you," he added, "The flaws are the hard part to get right."

"With alchemy, you mean," Judy said, and Nick nodded slowly.

"With alchemy," he agreed.

* * *

**Author's Notes:**

Before any chapter-specific notes, there are two items I would like to bring up:

This past week on FF, a reader going by Deathsmallcaps left a comment saying that they drew a picture of Princess Isabel based on this story. I can't say enough how honored I am; from the comment Deathsmallcaps left I can tell a lot of effort was put into it. Unfortunately, FF's anti-spam policy ate the link to the image that was provided, leaving only the following text:

gallery/1fWj6PG

If Deathsmallcaps or someone else can provide me with the full link, I'd be incredibly grateful and I'll definitely link to it!

Also this past week, this story was featured on the Zootopia News Network with a lovely write up by the one and only DrummerMax64. It means a lot to me to be considered worthy of being featured, and if you found this story through ZNN I'm happy to have your readership. If you're unfamiliar with ZNN, it's definitely worth checking out as a wonderful resource for everything from fan fiction and fan art to updates on official news about Zootopia merchandise, character cameos and (hopefully someday soon) sequel news. Thank you again, Max!

As for this chapter itself, I'll begin my notes by saying that my intent is that Judy's spear is made out of aluminum. Although aluminum is a very common metal, and is actually the third most common element (after oxygen and silicon) in the Earth's crust, it wasn't isolated until 1824. The reason for this is that aluminum is extremely reactive, and thus it is essentially only found bound up in minerals. However, I figure that in the world of the setting alchemy would make aluminum much easier to extract, hence its appearance here. As to why only the shaft of Judy's spear is aluminum, and not Nick's sword, aluminum has a number of properties that make it a poor choice for blades. Although it is lightweight and easily forms an oxide layer when exposed to air (and thus doesn't rust like steel), it's too soft and doesn't hold an edge well, and can be more prone to stress fractures.

The specific way in which Nick ruined Judy's spear is by transmuting a portion of the handle into mercury; mercury reacts with aluminum in an interesting way. That's the reason, incidentally, why airplanes don't allow mercury thermometers to be taken aboard; mercury seriously damages aluminum structures if it comes into contact. Essentially, what happens is that, if the oxide layer protecting the aluminum is worn away and the metal itself is exposed, it'll react with the mercury to form an amalgam. In the presence of moisture, this reaction quickly oxidizes the aluminum and produces elemental mercury, which forms an amalgam with the aluminum and continues the cycle. This can form long, hairy-looking "wires" from the aluminum, which will quickly weaken.

Nick's later caution to Judy not to touch her damaged spear, and to wash her paws before eating anything, is a good one; although elemental mercury as a liquid is not especially toxic if you ingest it, you should very much avoid inhaling mercury vapor.

Macuilxōchitl was previously referenced in chapter 1 as the god that Nick gives thanks to after winning a game of chance, one of the god's domains. Tepēyōllōtl is the god of animals, caves, echoes and earthquakes; I figured he'd be on Nick's mind considering his gambit in this last round relied on hiding underground in an artificial cave.

Nick did, in fact, comment that when using alchemy it's easier to make something structurally flawless than something flawed back in chapter 3.

Although Judy is, technically, already an officer, this chapter further suggests that sabres can only be worn by captains or higher, which was first suggested in chapter 7.

Hopefully you found this a satisfying conclusion to their duel; the next chapter featuring Nick and Judy will see them finally arrive in Phoenix, which as a setting was a lot of fun to create. Thanks again for reading, and as always I'd love to know what you thought if you're so inclined!


	12. Chapter 12

The difference between Corazón and Cencerro, so far as Bogo could tell, was with their ends rather than their means. Both mammals, he was sure, wanted nothing more than to be the most trusted advisor to the queen—and in Cencerro's case, that meant a constant struggle to retain her position—but it was the reason why they wanted that position that differed. Corazón wanted to be loved, to be admired and respected. It made his words seem to drip with falsehood at nearly every turn as he flattered and cajoled and otherwise wormed his way into the good graces of other mammals. Cencerro simply wanted power.

It made the little ewe dangerous; no matter what she might say about wanting to do something for the good of the citizens of Zootopia or out of altruism, Bogo could all but see the cold calculations that ran behind her eyes. In the past, Bogo's concerns about what she might do had been limited by the simple fact that she had little of Corazón's charisma that, in small doses, made a mammal feel like the center of universe. Lady Alba Cencerro was, despite all her skill at planning and strategy, timid and awkward at speaking in public. Being the power behind the throne, behind the queen's presence and grace that could all but be felt, was probably the best Cencerro could ever hope to achieve.

But Bogo had seen too many mammals make foolish moves due to naked ambition and greed to discount the possibility that Cencerro might have it in her to make a play for the throne; the history of Zootopia was full of criminals whose reach had exceeded their grasp, from ancient would-be nobles like Oztoyehuatl to the more modern crime lords like Alfonso of New Quimichin. It was why, when Cencerro laid out her proposal to cede control of a significant amount of her personal forces, that Bogo found himself somewhat more suspicious than when Cerdo had done the same.

It wasn't simply a matter of Cencerro seeming less sincere—if Bogo automatically discounted mammals for being insincere he suspected Corazón would have even more victories to his credit—but that she was taking the same action as one of her rivals. One of the sad facts of politics that bitter experience had taught Bogo was the high value of novelty; the first mammal to do something tended to reap far greater rewards than those that followed them, even if their own efforts were surpassed. Even as Bogo listened to Cencerro going through the bland details, his face a neutral mask, he tried desperately to figure out her play. Was she making a less than ideal move because it was still her best means of retaining power? Was she, in fact, working with Cerdo? It didn't seem possible, as the pig and the sheep didn't seem particularly fond of each other; if Bogo had to guess at which two of the queen's top advisors would conspire together it would be Cencerro and Corazón if only because they had something of a tendency to opportunistically use the other.

Rather than show Cencerro any of what he was thinking, though, Bogo simply inclined his head gravely and pretended to be paying rapt attention. "The city and crown appreciate your sacrifice, Lady Cencerro," he said, and she beamed up at him.

"It's the least I can do," she said, "Especially since Cerdo is doing the same."

Bogo supposed she might have revealed her angle; Corazón would have no choice but to do the same, and he would look like even more of a follower being the last to do so. It would also put all three of them, Corazón, Cerdo, and Cencerro, on an even playing field, which was where Cencerro's advantage was probably the greatest. Bogo simply made a noncommittal noise and said, "I'll have the orders sent over to the central barracks at once," rising from his desk as he did so.

"Oh, Captain General?" Cencerro said, obviously not taking the hint that their conversation was over, "There was just one more thing."

Bogo paused, simply looking down at her wordlessly. "I was wondering if you found out how that dreadful llama made it into the palace," Cencerro said, her words seemingly guileless, "If there's anything I can do to help—you know I've spent more time in this drafty old place than just about anyone else, it's like a home to me—you just say the word."

Bogo gave himself a long moment as he considered the ewe's words. As a matter of fact, the question of how the llama had made it so far into the palace was the one that he found the most troubling, because it seemed to be the pivotal question that would answer everything. The would-be assassin had not been one of the many servants who worked in the palace, and the stonemason's guild he belonged to wasn't one that the crown would have ever dreamed of using for work on the palace. Frankly, Jorge de Cuvier didn't even bear a passing resemblance to any of the few llamas that did work in the palace, and even if he did none of them had missed a shift.

The palace was a labyrinth of passages, one Bogo had thought he knew as well as anyone could, and while some of the hidden passageways had their uses—if the palace was ever sieged, the royal family would always have a way out—it was certainly possible that there were ones that he didn't know about. Considering that a few hundred years ago King Felipe III was said to have ordered the execution of everyone who had worked on what had at the time been the most significant renovation in the palace's history to preserve its secrets, it was entirely possible that there were secret passageways that no one living knew about. But anything that could be hidden could be found; even the most careful of criminals couldn't possibly eliminate every single piece of evidence. "Consider the word spoken, Lady Cencerro," Bogo said at last.

Cencerro smiled up at him again. "Anything I can do to help our queen," she said, her voice almost nauseating in its sweetness.

Sometimes—not often, but sometimes—Cencerro almost looked as though she really cared. Perhaps she did, when it came to the queen; the two had known each other for their entire lives, and whatever faults the little ewe had she had always been a good friend to the queen. But perhaps, as Corazón had implied, Cencerro was angling to be named the queen's successor should anything happen to the princess. Lady Cencerro was married, after all, and had already produced an heir of her own that would neatly ensure that the royal family remained full-blooded sheep.

"Speak to one of my generals, then," Bogo said, and made his way through the rituals of farewells as rapidly as he could, all the while despairing at the situation the queen had put herself in.

The three mammals the queen relied on most, her most trusted and longest serving advisers, were also the most likely suspects of the attempted murder of her daughter. An attempted murder that had followed what might not have been the poor luck of illness on the prince consort's part. As Bogo made his way out of his office and stalked off for the grand staircase that led to the queen's residence, he repeated a promise to himself he must have made a thousand times.  _If the queen_ ever _gets it in her head to grant me a title of nobility I'm turning her down._

* * *

The long walk up to the queen's residence might have winded a mammal who didn't take care of themselves the way Bogo did; his wife was fond of saying that he looked exactly the way he did on the day they married. It wasn't true, of course; there were the threads of white that had started working themselves into the rich gray of his fur and he needed glasses to read anything not meant to be seen from twenty paces, but unlike so many of his contemporaries all of his old clothes still fit. Not that he would have worn them for anyone but Maria; his wife was inexplicably fond of his old ruff collar that had mercifully become unfashionable right around the same time their daughter had been born.

Bogo shook his head slightly as he approached the guards on either side of the massive golden double door that led to the queen's set of rooms, trying to force his idle thoughts away. For some reason he felt as though he was becoming more prone to distraction, as if his thoughts were steering themselves. No matter what Maria might say he was getting older, and his days of working three split shifts in a row and still feeling focused and energetic were long over. He had to accept his own limits, the same as any of his other officers; the two horses guarding the queen looked as though they had just stepped out of the barracks they were so immaculately uniformed and alert.

He was sure he looked nowhere near as crisp, but the horses saluted him all the same, pounding the butts of their spears against the cool stone of the hallway that the overly plush carpet didn't cover, before announcing his presence. Bogo barely had time to appreciate the engravings on the massive golden doors, which showed the family tree of the royal family all the way from King Oveja I to Princess Isabel complete with exquisite depictions of each royal. Excluding, of course, the princess. Her likeness, as per a tradition that had gone on so long that no one could remember who had started it, would be added above her name on her twentieth birthday. Or, as Bogo remembered, his stomach souring, on the day she died if she didn't live that long.

There were more than a few members of the royal family depicted as lambs in mute testimony to their short lives, but they thankfully vanished from sight as the doors opened outwards, hiding the family tree on the fronts of the doors to reveal the far simpler engravings on their backs: the royal family motto PLUS ULTRA in letters nearly four feet tall. That the letters didn't appear oversized was a testament to how enormous the golden doors on their massive hinges were; each door likely contained enough gold to gild the entire palace, inside and out, had they been melted down.

Mercifully, the queen's tastes were not nearly as ostentatious as whichever forgotten member of the royal family had ordered the creation of the doors, and the interior of her suite of rooms resembled a conservatory full of beautifully cultivated plants more than anything else. When Queen Lana had ascended to the throne she had ordered the formerly gloomy suites opened up, with the windows expanded and the ancient tapestries with their gold and silver threads pulled from the walls. The floor was, through what could only be an incredible amount of effort, grass rather than either carpet or bare stone, and Bogo enjoyed the simple feel of it against his toes as he entered. The ceiling was nearly twenty feet above Bogo's head, and since it wouldn't have been practical to demolish everything above the royal apartments to have a glass roof the next best thing had been done. An incredible dome of diamond and elegantly curving steel had been built and alchemical torches placed in the ceiling beyond it, with elaborate clockwork to make the lights perfectly match the stars at night. For the daytime, the ceiling beyond the dome had been painted a vivid shade of blue that reality rarely matched, and an enormous alchemical torch in a great blown glass fixture made a convincing duplicate of the sun. Hidden fans blew gentle breezes, barely enough to make the grass and other plants ripple but undeniably there, and the gentle murmur of a small waterfall and a stream that led to a pond large enough for an elephant to use as a bathtub completed the idyllic scene.

The queen and the princess were where Bogo had expected to find them, sitting beside the pond with their feet in the water. Commoners expected royalty to always wear crowns and clothes so richly made that they could double as anchors, and considering that tended to be true of any appearance a commoner might see it was a perfectly understandable misapprehension. That didn't prevent it from being wrong; both the queen and the princess had changed from their elaborate gowns into simple shifts of pure white linen, and neither wore any sign of office besides the way they carried themselves even at rest, their platinum torcs free of adornments. If it hadn't been for the slightly anxious look that both mammals had shot in Bogo's direction, even with the escort of guards that took him to the edge of the pond, Bogo might almost have believed that neither had any more care than relaxing after a taxing day.

Bogo had scarcely begun to bow before the queen interrupted. "Sit down, Bogo," she said, "You'll give me a crick in my neck looking up at you."

There was a ghost of the queen's typical smile on her face; she had said the same words, or near enough, to Bogo that he felt as though he had heard every possible spin that could be put on them, from genuine humor to irritation to bland routine. This time, it had sounded closer to humor, albeit with a thin and tense undercurrent of fear. She was putting on a brave face for her daughter, he was sure, and he sympathized; the burden of being queen was a tremendous one that he did not envy. Princess Isabel would have to learn to do the same, to hide away the fear he saw plainly written across her face.

Bogo lowered himself to the ground; even sitting the queen would have to look up at him. The princess was tall enough, though, due to the strange proportions her nature as a chimera granted her and Bogo found himself surprised, wondering how long that had been the case. She really was growing up incredibly quickly, and when she spoke her tone was almost heartbreakingly similar to her deceased father. "Captain General," she said, "What have you learned so far?"

Bogo glanced at the queen, his gesture so small he was sure it was barely noticeable, and she gave an equally subtle nod. He launched into a summary of what he had learned, falling into the cadence of a report with the ease born of doing so untold thousands of times in front of superiors that ranged from the lowly lieutenant who had done his best to make Ensign Bogo's service in the City Guard as miserable as possible to the queen and the prince consort. When at last he had reached the end of his recitation, including but not speculating on the transfers of troops from Cencerro and Cerdo, both the queen and princess were quiet for a long moment.

At last, the queen spoke, but not to Bogo. Rather, she turned her head to look at her daughter as though he wasn't there. "What would you do, my dear?" she asked.

The princess considered it, and Bogo found himself reminded of how much she was the daughter of both her parents despite her unique appearance. Her coat of what wasn't quite wool and wasn't quite fur was darker than her mother's pure white wool yet lighter than her father's midnight black fur, but the tip of her tail twitched as her father's had when he was deep in thought and one clawed paw went beneath her chin in a gesture Bogo had seen her mother do countless times. "Even if we announce nothing," Isabel began, somewhat hesitantly, "Rumors will spread. Mammals will notice that there are more guards than normal and they might jump to conclusions. It might cause a panic."

It was clear to Bogo that it was something that the princess had been expecting to be asked, and he noted how closely the queen was watching her daughter's answer, still ignoring him completely. The princess, however, was not, her eyes occasionally flickering from her mother to him. "But if we do announce that someone..." Isabel began, and then swallowed so hard Bogo could see her throat bob even underneath her pure platinum torc, "That someone tried killing me, we look weak."

"Even though the attempt was unsuccessful?" Queen Isabel asked, her tone quite conversational.

"Mammals will say the City Guard..." Isabel trailed off again, her eyes darting to Bogo for a long moment before she continued, "They'll say the City Guard failed."

The princess seemed to expect that Bogo would have winced or protested, but he bore the remark with no comment, simply inclining his head. She was right that the City Guard had failed, and if Bogo had taken offense every time someone told him he had made a mistake he never would have made lieutenant, let alone captain general. His burden was not nearly as vast as the one the royal family carried, but ultimately every failure of the City Guard belonged to him. "Mammals might panic," Isabel continued, seemingly once she was sure Bogo wasn't going to say anything.

"That's true," the queen agreed, "Mammals might panic either way. But you haven't answered my question. What would you do?"

Isabel's mouth opened and closed wordlessly, her poise suddenly ruined. She was, after all, not yet fully grown, and there was no shame in that. "I..." the princess began, "I would..."

She stopped and took a deep breath even as her mother continued keenly watching her. "What would you recommend, Captain General?" Isabel asked suddenly.

To Bogo's great surprise, the queen suddenly laughed, clapping her hooves together in apparent delight. "Very good, my dear!" she said, "Never forget that you have mammals to advise you."

When a thoughtful frown began to spread across the princess's face, the queen entwined one hoof in her daughter's considerably larger paw. "But never forget the final decision, for good or ill, is always yours."

"I recommend making the attempt known," Bogo said, "Some mammals have grown so used to peace that they forget the City Guard does anything at all."

The princess nodded. "I agree," she said, "Mother, what do you recommend?"

"We can offer a reward for anyone who knows anything about why this Jorge de Cuvier tried to kill you," the queen said, and there was a darkness about her words that hadn't been there before.

Bogo had been surprised when the queen started laughing, apparently turning the assassination attempt against her daughter into a teaching moment little different from what she had been doing in the council room at the time of the attack. However, that surprise was nothing compared to what he felt when the princess burst into tears and threw herself against her mother. Her entire body heaved with sobs, her arms gripping the queen so tightly Bogo wasn't sure she could breathe, and at first Bogo couldn't make out Isabel's words. "Is—is—isn't it o-obvious?" she asked, "It's—it's b-b-because I'm a  _freak!_ "

She all but spat the last word, but even as her mother tried to say something Isabel plowed on. "I've seen what mammals write... What they  _say_... How they..." she said, and then her words were lost to more tears.

Bogo, unfortunately, knew exactly what she meant. Not even a month ago, the City Guard had forcibly disbanded a society running a printing press they used to make pamphlets about the supposed true nature of the princess, who they claimed was an unthinking monster who could only speak at all because a blood magician was magically manipulating her like a puppet. Smashing the press and arresting the mammals involved for the crime of lèse-majesté wasn't enough to have stopped their message from getting out, and while Bogo believed that most mammals saw their claims for the nonsense they were that didn't mean there wasn't an audience for such lunacy.

"You aren't a freak," the queen said, rubbing at her daughter's back soothingly, "You're not."

"But—" Isabel began, but the queen cut her off.

"But some mammals will believe any nonsense they think explains why they live such miserable lives. Anything to blame anyone but themselves. Bogo, do you remember the rumors about my father?" the queen said.

"That he used quauhxicallis to hunt mammals for sport," Bogo replied instantly.

He was, in truth, somewhat grateful that the queen was taking the lead in soothing the princess's fears; it had been difficult enough finding the words to say when it had been his own daughter crying (and he wasn't sure he had ever quite found the perfect words), and she hadn't been a chimera. "That's right," the queen said, chuckling a little, "And they said my grandmother used the blood of innocent lambs to stay young. It's all nonsense."

"But none of that was true!" Isabel protested, her voice somewhat muffled from how her head rested against her mother's shoulder, "I  _am_ —"

"Only alive because of magic?" the queen snapped, "So is everyone living in Zootopia. Maybe it's not obvious to the mammals who never leave the barony they were born in, but look out that window."

Despite how much larger her daughter was, Queen Lana pulled Isabel to her feet before Bogo could so much as move to help. She led the princess over to one of the enormous windows and gestured sweepingly. "Do you see all of it?" she asked, her words more gentle, "None of that exists and none of us eat without magic."

Isabel heaved a choked sob, but she looked out the window as her mother had instructed. Bogo did the same, looming behind them, looking out over Zootopia from much higher up than from out of the window in his office. In early twilight the city was a magnificent series of glowing lights, spreading very nearly as far as the eye could see. The enormous aqueducts that carried water from the city-state's center to the edges of the Middle Baronies looked like spider webs, the water burning orange in the fading light of day and seeming to go on forever. It was too dark and they were too high up for Bogo's eyes to make out any mammals on the ground far below, but perhaps Isabel's vision was more like her father than her mother and she could see the countless mammals still going about their business even as the light of day rapidly dimmed. Even at night, the city wouldn't really sleep, and there would still be incredible masses of mammals lining the streets as they went to their jobs or simply enjoyed themselves.

"Your father saw you as a symbol of what makes Zootopia work," the queen continued quietly, "And so do I. More so than any king or queen who came before you, you can understand it all. Predator and prey, blood magic and alchemy. Everything."

Isabel sniffled, and when she spoke again she sounded as though she had a bad cold. "Thank you," she said, and Bogo felt deeply uncomfortable at having witnessed a moment that should have remained between the two of them, as though he were an intruder.

"Now," Isabel said, and her voice was regaining some of its previous poise as she turned away from the window to face him, "Captain General, let's discuss some of the details about the speech you'll give."

Bogo didn't particularly care for public speaking but knew better than to protest, and so he simply bowed low. "Of course, my liege," he said, his voice as gravelly and proper as it ever was.

When he straightened himself up, he saw something on Isabel's face he hadn't seen since before the attack. She was, however slightly, despite how tear-stained her face was, smiling.

* * *

**Author's Notes:**

Previously, I had asked for help with a link to a piece of fan art reader Deathsmallcaps drew. Happily, Deathsmallcaps was able to provide a working link to the fan art they made of Princess Isabel, which can be seen here :

<https://imgur.com/a/1fWj6PG/>

I want to say just how much I appreciate it, Deathsmallcaps! This is the first time anyone has ever drawn fan art for something I wrote, and I can't say how much that means to me. I'll always treasure it, and I hope that you'll continue to enjoy the story!

There have been six kings of Spain who went by Felipe, making it a natural choice for a long-ago ruler. Rumors of kings ordering the deaths of craftsmen to preserve the secrets of what they built are something of a cliché, and have been occasionally spread libelously.

Ruff collars were in fashion from about the middle of the 16th century to the middle of the 17th before they fell out of favor. In Spain, King Phillip IV actually banned them in 1623 for political reasons. The idea of banning a piece of clothing by royal decree might sound a little odd, but there was definitely some logic behind it. By the 17th century, ruffs had become so large that they required elaborate internal supports and daily washing and starching to maintain their shape. Additionally, ruffs were also tinted with dyes produced by Spain's then-enemy, the Dutch, which gave another reason for critics to protest against them. In essence, they became seen as an unmanly display of vulgar excess (some sneeringly referring to men who wore them as soft and feminine) due to the cost and effort needed to maintain them, and they were even seen as not being sufficiently patriotic.

The vagaries of fashion in this world varied a bit from the real world, but if there's anything that can be counted on it's that fashions change; it's one of the ways I want to make the setting feel real. Bogo's wife being fond of how he looks in a ruff (and Bogo wearing one for her in private no matter how much he personally dislikes it) is one of those compromises that probably says a lot about how deep his gruff and harsh exterior really goes.

The motto "plus ultra" is Latin for "further beyond" and does appear in the Spanish coat of arms, having been adopted by King Charles I following Christopher Columbus's successful journey to the New World. It's a reversal of a warning said to have been inscribed at the Strait of Gibraltar ("non terrae plus ultra" meaning "no land further beyond") at the time that was the end of the known world.

One of gold's most remarkable properties is how malleable it is; a single gram of gold can be beaten into a sheet a meter (roughly three feet) on each side. However, considering how large the palace has been said to be, the doors are still extremely large. I figure that in a world with alchemy gold isn't nearly as valuable as it is in our world; it's not completely worthless, but it's still intended to be impressive.

As part of the description of Princess Isabel in this chapter, her father the prince consort is described as being midnight black. About six percent of jaguars have this appearance, but they do also have the pattern of rosettes that more typically colored jaguars do. In one of the movie's impressive moments of attention to detail, depending on the lighting the pattern on Mr. Manchas's fur is visible.

The term "lèse-majesté" is a real one, and means crimes against the dignity of the crown. It's a law that really only exists in monarchies, where mocking or insulting the ruler can be a punishable offense.

As always, thanks for reading! I'd love to know what you thought!


	13. Chapter 13

True to Nick's word, he was not up with the sun the following morning. Even after Judy had completely finished her morning training routine (using the spear that Nick had made himself instead of her own, which was still in two pieces) despite the protests of her muscles from the previous night, cleaned herself up, and eaten, she could still hear his gentle snores coming from his tent as she sat and looked off in the distance at Phoenix, turning the little golden carrot Nick had made her over and over in her paws. With nothing to do but wait for him to wake up, the memory of her fist connecting with his eye came back into her mind, unbidden, for what must have been about the hundredth time. Judy felt her ears drooping against the back of her neck, but even shaking her head couldn't clear the guilt she felt.

Her victory against Nick had been far from her first win in a sparring match; despite being easily the smallest member of her graduating class at the academy she had successfully fought her way to the top of the ranks. It wasn't even the first time that she had injured someone in a bout; Judy could vividly remember knocking a tooth out of the mouth of one of her fellow cadets with a particularly well-timed kick. The difference between that fight and the one against Nick, though, was that Nick was a civilian and not a fellow trainee.

Perhaps it was simply that Nick was also a fox, but the previous night, as she had tossed and turned trying to fall asleep, Judy had kept returning to the uncomfortable memory of Gideon and how he had clawed her face. It had been the pleasure, she had decided at last; in the moment before her torc had reached out and inflicted an identical wound the young fox's face had been full of the simple cruel pleasure of hurting her. Judy felt ashamed of the brief moment of pleasure she had felt, and had tried thinking up a way of really apologizing to Nick; she found herself wishing that he had been a bunny too.

If he had been a bunny (and Judy had briefly entertained the notion of a russet-furred buck with brilliantly green eyes lazily half-hooded and a seemingly perpetually smug expression), showing how sincerely she meant her apology would have been easy. She could have helped groom him, but she had no idea how a fox would take it; the last thing she wanted was to make him more uncomfortable, no matter how wonderfully soft his fur had to—Judy's thoughts were interrupted by Nick staggering out of his tent looking rather well-worn. His fur was completely disheveled, his ears and tail both drooping pathetically. His left eye was bloodshot and puffy, and his right wasn't visible beneath a faintly glowing strip of fabric wrapped around his head. Judy winced at the sight; seeing again how she had accidentally hurt him brought with it a fresh wave of guilt. "It's not that bad, is it?" Nick asked lightly, "Here, is this better?"

As he spoke, he unwrapped the bandage from around his head, and Judy caught a brief glimpse of the interior of it—the inside surface of the part of it that had been over his eye had a complicated pattern of interlocking circles and triangles that glowed with an odd pinkish color unlike anything Judy had ever seen before in the academy's infirmary—before she was distracted by the change in his face.

Judy was very familiar with how black eyes looked (and, thanks to one of her instructors, she knew precisely how they felt), and even with immediate treatment with an incomplete philosopher's stone Judy had never seen one disappear completely in less than two days. Judy had expected Nick's eye to still be swollen shut, but it looked perfectly normal. In fact, the eye she had hit actually looked better considering that the other was bloodshot. "Still doubting my alchemy, I see," Nick said with an easy smile as he seemed to take in her surprise, "I did tell you, I have powers beyond the ken of most mammals. Besides, you didn't hit me  _that_ hard."

He waggled his fingers as he repeated his boast, the same as he had the previous night, and Judy found a sense of relief swelling in her chest. For him to heal so fast even with the aid of alchemy it must really not have been all that serious a hit, and while she still wasn't proud of hitting an innocent civilian in the eye it did help assuage her guilt a little. "I'm still really sorry," Judy said, and Nick waved her apology aside.

"I'm perfectly alright," Nick said cheerfully, "Now here, let me see that spear of yours."

True to Nick's instructions, Judy had left the broken pieces of her spear where they were, although the odd sort of hairiness that the metal had taken on had continued to spread up both pieces of the shaft from where they had split. Nick repaired the break Judy had made in the circle he had drawn the previous night and quickly drew a square around the spear, setting up his elemental focuses at the intersections of the square and the circle. She supposed that, although he had already shown her that he was capable of transmuting materials incredibly fast when he wanted to, doing so more slowly took less effort, because it took him about a minute to repair her spear. Unlike his rapid transmutations the previous night, where the material seemed to simply briefly burst with light, Judy saw the spear's shaft distinctly go through each of the color changes as it flowed back together before Nick lifted it and gave it to her.

Although Judy had always done her best to keep her duty spear in as close to parade-ready condition as possible, it had still picked up some scuffs and scrapes from normal use. Now, though, her spear had a strip about an inch wide that was perfectly and faultlessly smooth and shiny from where Nick had rejoined the metal, but there was otherwise absolutely no kind of visible seam or joint. In fact, it looked more as though someone had buffed a single portion of the shaft rather than that it had ever been in two pieces, and the spear's balance was completely unaffected.

Nick next set to work adjusting his sword, spreading out the cloth he had wrapped it in and positioning his focuses on it. In the light of morning, and at a much closer distance, Judy saw that the complicated pattern of triangles drawn on it hadn't been made with simple lines; each triangle was actually composed of lines of text, the letters rather cramped, although since Judy couldn't read the Dead Tongue she had no idea what they said although some of the words looked vaguely familiar. Before she could take a closer look, Nick had put his sabre on the cloth, after which he traced a few lines through the gritty dirt to where he sat, connecting it to the pattern already on the fabric. He placed his paws on either side of the sword and Judy felt the air seem to sharpen again, her fur standing on end, and watched as the sabre changed. Even as the color seemed to flow out of it, making it completely black, the sabre was shrinking. But rather than simply becoming smaller all over, Judy noticed that the pommel at the end of the hilt was actually growing larger, stretching and shifting into something that Judy at first couldn't recognize. As the sabre started to glow, though, the blade thickening somewhat, the ornament Nick had added to the pommel became unmistakable; it could only be—"A pretty good likeness, wouldn't you say?" Nick said, nodding his head in apparent approval of his own work even as he carelessly tossed away a little shiny cylinder of metal that seemed to be leftover from making the sword smaller.

The ornament on the pommel was, unquestionably, a miniature representation of a fox's head. Moreover, it was a representation of Nick's head. Unlike some officer's sabres Judy had seen, where the mammal wielding it had decorated the end with a little ornamental head of the same species they belonged to looking as fierce as possible, the little fox head had a perfectly recognizable half-smirk across its face and was winking one eye. It was playful in a way Judy had never seen a sword be before, but she thought it perfectly fit the character of the swordmaker. Besides, she thought suddenly, once she was done escorting Nick to Phoenix, and helping him buy the book he wanted, she might never see him again. The little representation of him at the end of the sword might be the only thing to remember him by for a very long time; if he made a habit of traveling back and forth to Phoenix and she got assigned to the Inner Baronies, their paths would simply never cross.

"It's perfect," Judy said, and Nick seemed to swell in satisfaction even as he gave the sword over to her.

Although the ornament had caught the majority of Judy's attention, she had noticed how the blade had thickened after it had first been remolded to fit her, and as she took the blade in one paw she saw why. The edge of the blade was no longer dull; there was a thin, transparent edge to it that caught the light and sparkled. "It's very sharp," Nick warned, "Try not to touch the edge."

She had been about to test the edge with one finger, but quickly pulled it back at Nick's words. He offered her a sheath he had pulled from his pack, and Judy put the sword away with no small amount of regret; it was perfectly balanced and sized for her, but she couldn't in good conscience wear it with her uniform until she made captain. "Now that  _that's_  taken care of, it's time for me to get ready," Nick said, rubbing his paws briskly to get the dirt off them, "I can't be seen walking into Phoenix looking like this."

"Do you want any help with that?" Judy asked, the words out of her mouth before she really had a chance to think about them.

She froze in horror as the realization as to what she had just said struck her; he had given her the perfect opportunity to show the sincerity of her apology in the way she would another bunny, and her response had been all but automatic. Nick arched an eyebrow, his eyes looking her up and down with surprising scrutiny, and then he shrugged. "Why not? I'd rather reach Phoenix before it gets dark."

In the end, even as Judy found herself brushing Nick's tail—which was just as luxuriously soft and fluffy as it looked; her fingers holding the brush could completely vanish into it—she couldn't help but wonder why he had agreed. Was it simply because, as he had claimed, he wanted to save time getting ready himself? Or perhaps foxes who were close friends helped groom each other the way bunnies did; Judy didn't know any foxes well enough to make a guess one way or the other. She couldn't even say if he thought she was his friend or if he was simply being polite to his escort. Whatever the case, Nick seemed to preen at the attention; there was absolutely no tension in his body. He had changed into a fresh pair of trousers and a tunic and was seeing to the fur of his head and neck even as Judy brushed the tangles out of his tail.

After eyeing her work and judging it satisfactory (although he did add, with mock severity, that it didn't count as the favor she had promised him), Nick put on a fresh coat he had pulled from his seemingly bottomless bag and declared himself ready to go. The rest of their walk to Phoenix passed in easy and pleasant conversation; if Nick held any kind of grudge about being punched in the face he didn't show it.

As they got close enough to really see Phoenix, Judy found herself a little disappointed at how plain and rough it looked. Considering that she had learned it had been built on the ruins of the Quimichpatlan Barony, Judy had expected something more like the Inner Baronies, or failing that even like her own home in Tochtli Barony. But instead of graceful towers and squat stepped pyramids, even in ruins, or fields of rustling grain and the occasional farmhouse, Phoenix looked to have been built mostly from the collapsed stone of the Outer Wall; all of the buildings she could see were made of irregular chunks of white stone that were only vaguely cube-shaped and none of them would have been more than two stories tall for any mammal larger than a jaguar.

Phoenix was, admittedly, an entirely respectable size; there could easily be a few thousand residents Judy's size or larger without it being cramped. Still, knowing that it was built on the ruins of the barony where a conspiracy of vampire bat blood magicians had plotted to overthrow the second king of Zootopia, Judy had expected something a little more visually distinct. Then again, she supposed that the alchemists of King Oveja II had simply been thorough; in response to what was undeniably treason the king had ordered Quimichpatlan Barony to be completely destroyed.

It was a pity, though, that there wasn't anything left, not even a memorial like the one so close to where Judy grew up that marked where the Middle Wall had been breached and then repaired. Judy's thoughts must have shown on her face, because Nick said, "Disappointed, Carrots?"

A slight smile touched his features as he awaited her response, both of them still walking along the path that led into Phoenix itself. "A little," Judy admitted, "I expected Phoenix to be..."

She trailed off, unable to find the right word, but Nick's smile broadened into a grin. "Do you hear a waterfall?" he asked.

"Yes," Judy said, and suddenly realized how strange that was; the aqueducts from the Inner Baronies didn't reach Phoenix, or else Nick wouldn't have had a contract to bid for on purifying water from wells, but there weren't any bodies of water that she could see.

"Over there," Nick said, gesturing her over to a stone lattice railing that went alongside one edge of the path, "You can look down if you want."

Judy remembered that Nick had seemed afraid of heights when they had crossed the Cozamalotl Bridge, and as she walked over to the railing she expected to see a similar gorge. Through the stone lattice she could see sheets of water flowing over the edge of a crack in the earth, but when she looked down to see where the water collected she at first couldn't believe what she was seeing.

When Judy had been young, perhaps seven or eight, wasps had built a nest in one of the less frequently used sheds on her parents' estate. The shed had been full of battered old furniture that her father had said he would eventually fix up (although he had made that promise for at least five or six years with absolutely no progress), so the kits of the barony had used the shed as a sort of play fort. Or at least, Judy had; none of her siblings had held any interest in imagining the thin and shabby walls of the shed to be the mighty Middle Wall that protected Zootopia and playing at guarding it. But even though her sisters especially preferred to play house, imagining the shed to be the manor of some ridiculously wealthy rabbit lord from the Inner Baronies, it had been Judy who had been the first to open the door to the shed that season.

She didn't think she'd ever forget the feeling that had come over her when she had opened the rickety wooden door and peered in. Her first sense had been of something being terribly  _wrong_ in such a visceral way that nothing else had come close even years later. The familiar shapes of the tables and chairs had been deformed, softened and blurred by the ugly asymmetry of what everyone in the Tochtli Barony would later agree was the largest wasp nest anyone had ever seen. The feeling of wrongness had eventually resolved itself into a powerful sense of revulsion at the horrible way in which the familiar had been turned alien; even the peaceful quiet of the shed had been replaced by the harshly atonal buzzing of the wasps swarming over each other deep beneath the thin and rough skin of paper they had built.

Her first glimpse at what Phoenix had been built upon brought forth a nearly identical feeling; because the ground had been more or less level it hadn't been visible until she was right on top of it. She was standing near an enormous fissure in the earth, one so deep that it was impossible to say how far down it went but easily two or three hundred feet wide at the part closest to a collapsed portion of the Outer Wall and the scrublands beyond. It was clear that there had at some point been an enormous underground community, the fissure cracking open tunnels large enough for a giraffe to walk upright through and exposing enormous caves that could have swallowed her family home. Judy could see what looked like apartments and shops, but whatever had split the ground had also melted the exposed rock into unsettling patterns that reminded her of nothing more than that wasp nest. In some parts of the depths of the fissure, glowing dimly where the fading sunlight didn't reach, were the deformed remains of alchemical torches, their brightness faded to a nearly invisible and vaguely greenish glow over the countless centuries, the formerly perfectly formed lights twisted and distorted.

Puddles of what had once been solid rock, glistening translucently in some places and firmly opaque in others, had dripped over what had once been floors into amorphous stalagmites. Or rather, as Judy realized, what had once been  _ceilings._  The way the very rock itself had run and dripped like hot wax had been only a large part of the reason Judy had made her mistake, but it was the force of habit more than anything else to assume that all mammals would build their homes the way that bunnies did, with floors below and ceilings above.

By contrast, the remains of the Quimichpatlan Barony treated ceilings and floors interchangeably. Judy could see the lumpy remains of what could have only been a stone table, with beautifully carved legs, hanging from the ceiling in one ruined apartment, while in another spot a shop held the ruins of a display stand melted into the floor. Judy realized that her jaw was hanging open but she couldn't do anything to help it; she had never imagined from what she had learned from her teachers that Quimichpatlan Barony had ever been so large and grand. Judy tried to imagine what it must have been like before it had been destroyed in the failed Second Uprising and couldn't; time had ruined the details that the intense heat of melting rock hadn't hundreds of years ago. Still, there were some signs of what must have been; one large cave was coated in tarnished silver that was thinnest at the tops of the walls and formed a puddle that dripped over the exposed edge and down into the depths of the fissure, whatever details had been on the wall ruined by it melting. Like the table in the apartment that had caught her attention, here and there some remaining bits of stonework had retained some of the detail they had been carved with, which to Judy's inexpert eye looked to be about the equal of anything she had seen while training in the very heart of the Inner Baronies.

The waterfall left plenty of gaps to see it all in, as it was less a continuous sheet and more many smaller falls no more than twenty feet wide or so, and it didn't come close to obscuring the massive fissure. The water did, however, have a somewhat oily-looking sheen to it that reminded Judy again of the contract Nick hoped to win; she found it very easy to believe that the water was in need of purification. "There are pumps way down there," Nick said, having appeared over Judy's shoulder while she was taking in the view, "Way,  _way_  down there."

She couldn't help but notice that he didn't look down the fissure himself, instead looking her right in the eyes. "Not that anyone's seen them in centuries, of course," Nick said, "The lower dozen levels or so are supposed to be completely flooded."

Judy looked from Nick and then back down into the fissure. Even the point where the sunlight stopped reaching had to be three hundred feet below them, and if there were a dozen or more flooded levels even deeper... Although Judy wasn't afraid of either heights or swimming, she felt a touch of vertigo at the idea. "And are they?" Judy asked, "Do mammals go down there?"

Nick chuckled, shaking his head. "Not the smart ones. There are things down there worse than dirty water."

Judy turned her head sharply back in Nick's direction. "Like what?" she asked.

"Oh, you know, the usual things mammals say to scare kits. Ancient booby traps, half-mad mammals who got lost and couldn't find their way out, ghosts..." Nick said, ticking each off on one finger.

As he trailed off, he snapped his fingers suddenly. "And monsters, of course. Can't forget those."

Judy peered down into the depths of the ruins again as though some horrible beast might be staring back up at her. "Monsters?" she repeated.

Nick's tone had been half-teasing for all of the other supposed horrors he had named, but when he got to the last item, his words had seemed more serious than joking. "Monsters," Nick repeated, "Supposedly, the alchemists who destroyed Quimichpatlan Barony wanted to be sure there were no survivors, so they sent in chimeras."

His tone had continued to be surprisingly serious, but at the idea of chimeras being sent into the ruined barony Judy couldn't help but laugh; he was obviously just trying to scare her. "Chimeras like the princess?" Judy said, doing her very best to exude skepticism with every word; even with her limited knowledge of alchemy she knew that the first chimera had been born about forty years ago.

"Not like the princess, no," Nick said, shaking his head, "They weren't mammals."

He still seemed to be serious, and Judy pressed him on it. "Do you really believe those stories?" she asked.

"I've seen some of the things the mammals stupid enough to go down into the ruins bring back with them," Nick said, "Feathered snakes with wings... enormous lobsters with stingers..."

He shrugged. "You'll see things in the market that would make your tail puff out," he finished, and after shooting a sidelong glance at her tail added, "If it could, anyway."

Judy chuckled, a little uneasily; although Nick seemed to take the existence of monsters seriously enough, he didn't seem particularly worried about them. Considering that he apparently thought mammals who descended into the ruins were stupid, she would be entirely willing to bet that he had never gone into the depths himself. "You'll have to show me what's worth buying," Judy said, and Nick hooked his thumbs into his coat.

"Well, there is the book you're buying for me to start with," Nick said, "Otherwise..."

He stroked at his chin, apparently deep in thought, "I hear there's a fox alchemist who stops by Phoenix from time to time. He might have something worth buying when he sets up his stall. Quite the conversationalist, too, and all the vixens say he's very good-looking."

"Ah," Judy said, doing her best to hide a smile, "He sounds pretty remarkable."

* * *

**Author's Notes:**

In chapter 1, there are some hints at what Judy remembers in this chapter, so far as Gideon clawing her in the face goes.

Real rabbits do in fact groom each other both as a sign of affection and a means of establishing a hierarchy within their group. I think there's plenty of evidence in the movie that the Hopps family is physically affectionate, and I'd imagine that grooming as means of apologizing and smoothing things over seemed appropriate as a typical bunny behavior. Foxes do groom each other as well, but considering Judy's lack of knowledge about foxes her concern about how Nick would take it are not unfounded.

Black eyes typically last about a week or so, although in a world where most everyone's face is covered with fur they probably become less obvious faster.

In chapter 8, I had noted that I refer to Nahuatl as the Old Tongue; in this chapter I'm referring to Latin as the Dead Tongue. Latin was last used as a primary language by around the 9th century CE; although Latin remained important as a language that many things were written in, it no longer had any native speakers and was used as a second language. Latin is, therefore, a dead language, and has been now for centuries. The romance languages, including Spanish, are derived from Latin, so considering the translation convention in effect it makes sense that Judy might see some words as looking somewhat familiar.

The cutting edge of the sabre is made of diamond, using alchemy to bond the carbon in the diamond to the carbon in the steel at the molecular level. This is something that would be essentially impossible to do with any known chemical techniques, but with the perfect control of matter that alchemy provides would be both possible and extraordinarily strong. Diamond can hold an incredibly sharp edge, but making an entire sword out of it would make it prone to shattering, so by having only the cutting surface be diamond it's making it a much better sword. The closest we can come with modern techniques is a diamond knife, which are frequently used in eye surgery due to their ability to hold such a sharp edge that it minimizes damage as it cuts, but the blades are extremely small and would make a poor weapon.

Quimichpatlan Barony takes its name from the Nahuatl word for bat; one of the things that occurred to me when I was setting up the background of this story was what the existence of blood magic might have interesting implications on animals that subsist on blood. There are, in fact, three species of vampire bat that subside exclusively on blood, with ranges that overlap that of modern-day Mexico, and I thought the idea of what it would mean for them to practice blood magic would be pretty interesting.

This barony is inspired by my idea of what a Nocturnal District would be like if Zootopia had one; locating it underground seems reasonable as a means of ensuring that it's dark. Of course, for a lot of the various districts mammals could simply live in the one that's appropriate for them and just go out at night, so I think if there is a Nocturnal District it could be a sort of microcosm of Zootopia, where it has a variety of climates and caters to naturally nocturnal mammals who want to be awake at the same time as diurnal mammals and diurnal mammals who want a taste of what the nocturnal life is like without having to stay up late.

The winged, feathered snakes that Nick claims lurk in the depths of the ruins of the Quimichpatlan Barony are a nod to Quetzalcoatl, whose name literally means "feathered serpent." In Aztec art, he's variously represented as both a human and as a snake with feathers.

The lobsters with stingers are a nod to Stephen King's Dark Tower series, where horrible creatures dubbed lobstrosities live on the beaches of the Western Sea and resemble enormous lobsters crossed with scorpions and are capable of producing something like speech.

As always, thanks for reading! I'd love to know what you thought!


	14. Chapter 14

Although Bogo found the princess's process for drafting the statement he would deliver to the city's major newspapers particularly agonizing—so far as he knew, there was very little difference between the words "cowardly" and "cravenly" and which one was used to describe the would-be assassin didn't matter—it was obvious to him that the task of writing up the statement had given her something to focus on other than her own fear.

It was therefore for her sake that he quietly resigned himself to sitting through the drafting of the statement; the only point he had any firmness on was to voice his complete disapproval of the princess's idea to deliver the statement herself. From the weary way the queen had shaken her head, Bogo suspected that Princess Isabel had made a similar suggestion prior to his own arrival, but the very idea of royalty giving a statement personally was appalling. The Corazóns of the city could aggrandize themselves in the eyes of the newspapers all they liked, but for any member of the royal family to stoop to that level would be an enormous breach of the unwritten and unspoken rules of conduct for the heads of state. The general public, so far as Bogo was concerned, needed the comfort and stability of an unshakable monarch that could be looked to in times of trouble as a bastion of stability.

He was therefore quite thankful when the princess did not press the issue any further, appearing to keenly note the disapproval of both her mother and himself, and at last completed the statement that Bogo would make for the benefit of the morning editions. With the message safely tucked away into an inner pocket of his uniform jacket, Bogo was preparing to return to his office in the lower levels of the palace and catch up on anything that had transpired in his absence when the queen spoke. "Captain General, a word please?" she said, and then, glancing at her daughter who was watching raptly, added, "You ought to get to bed, dearest."

The princess obviously knew her mother well enough to know that, no matter how gentle the tone, it was an order and not a suggestion, and she dropped a stiff curtsy before heading out. The statement drafting had been done in the queen's personal library, which could not be mistaken for the libraries of any of the estates of the wealthiest nobles due to the floor's soft cover of grass it shared with the other rooms of the royal suites and its massive size. The rows upon rows of shelving, filled with a dizzying assortment of reading material—from texts engraved on pages of beaten gold thinner than any paper and still looking new despite being hundreds of years old to crumbling codices of āmatl—loomed over even Bogo, and the very weight of the history and knowledge of Zootopia seemed to bear down upon him as the queen waited for her daughter to close the door behind her.

When at last the princess was gone, Queen Lana finally spoke. "You believe you can trust the information the prisoner gave you?" she asked, and whether her voice was quiet because she was afraid the princess might try eavesdropping or because she was doing her best to contain herself Bogo could not quite guess.

He had anticipated something along the lines of her questioning, but before he could so much as form a word the queen added, looking him dead in the eye, "Although you only  _asked_  him?"

There was no mistaking the anger in her voice for anything else, and Bogo answered bluntly. "A mammal will say anything to make torture stop," he said, and noticed that the insides of the queen's ears were reddening, although whether it was embarrassment or her anger reaching further heights he could not say.

She had never used the word torture in her instructions to him, but he saw by her reaction that it had most certainly been her intent. The queen raised one hoof, her eyes flashing, and for a brief moment Bogo thought that he might be joining Alfonso in the dungeons before she slumped back into her chair, her normally impeccable posture suddenly completely gone. "You're right," she said, and Bogo couldn't hear any anger in her voice, "I was..."

"Concerned for your daughter, your majesty," Bogo said.

The queen sighed, and waved one hoof to take in the library. "All of these books around us, you'd think I would have learned something," she said, "Did you ever learn what happened to King Oveja IV's daughter Eleanor?"

"No, your majesty," Bogo answered, after a brief attempt to cudgel his memory for a detail about something that had happened centuries ago and that he might have learned decades ago proved completely fruitless.

"She was the youngest child," the queen said slowly, "One who would never inherit the throne, of course, but still a princess. One day, she fell into a lake and drowned; she was only six and had never learned to swim. She had always been King Oveja IV's favorite, and eventually his grief turned to madness, seeing a tragic accident as a plot for the throne."

The queen paused a moment, seeming to look through Bogo as she continued her recitation. "He had his own brother tortured until he confessed to everything, naming co-conspirators at the very highest levels of nobility. The mad king had them all arrested and tortured in turn, until the ones who had been spared saw what the king no longer could. Do you know what they saw?"

The queen was, Bogo realized, turning the very same technique she used for teaching the princess on to him, but even though he couldn't remember learning about Princess Eleanor he knew there was only one thing that could have happened. "None of the stories matched," he said, and the queen nodded.

"They were..." the queen began, and after briefly trailing off she added, "Saying anything to make the torture stop."

She gave him a surprisingly rueful smile; protocol might prevent her from offering an apology to a commoner, even if he was the captain general of the City Guard, but Bogo understood her meaning well enough and he gave her a small nod. "King Oveja IV chose to abdicate the throne to his brother, if you believe he ever had a choice, and lived out his days in a private suite, if you believe it was a suite," the queen said, and Bogo knew what she meant.

The royal family ruled only with the support of the nobility, and the mad king must have pushed them dangerously close to civil war. Whether the choice to abdicate had been given to him at the end of a sword or not, the implication must have been obvious, and whether history called where he had lived the rest of his life a cell or a suite he almost certainly hadn't been permitted to leave. The thoughts of what might happen to her and her daughter had obviously occurred to the queen, and whatever bland words the historians would eventually choose to use to describe the events they were living through wouldn't change the reality of those events. "I would ask you not to let me stray again," the queen said, and Bogo bowed low.

"Of course, your majesty," he said.

* * *

Back in his office, Bogo pushed the conversation aside as he shuffled through the reports that he had been provided. His officers still hadn't managed to find the weasel who practiced a dubious form of blood magic, and it was still too early to expect the bear from the Middle Baronies to have been brought in, let alone to hear back from Phoenix about the wolf and the tiger. His stack of papers did, however, have a report from an expert alchemist about Jorge de Cuvier's torc, and Bogo frowned. He had completely forgotten to request it and found himself grateful for the foresight of his officers. Their attention where his own had failed, however, didn't amount to anything. The pattern engraved into Cuvier's torc had been altered in a peculiar and seemingly crude way, which the alchemist who wrote the report claimed to have never seen before. The alchemist, however, had been one of the physically larger court alchemists who reported to the pompous little mouse who had treated Bogo's injury, and Bogo grunted as he cast the report aside.

Any of the coroners who worked with the average citizens of Zootopia could have likely told the alchemist that mammals attempting to alter their torcs were hardly uncommon; the stupider thieves and would-be murderers thought that by scratching more symbols into their torcs they could avoid instant retribution for injuries they inflicted. The luckier of those mammals gave themselves severe burns to their necks and the less lucky simply died; Bogo had never heard of anyone successfully altering a torc. Jorge de Cuvier had likely tried, perhaps being too foolish to realize that whoever had put him up to the task of assassinating the princess had no expectation for him to survive the attempt, but he had obviously failed from the way he had suffered an injury identical to Bogo.

Tomas hadn't commented on it at the time he had examined Cuvier's body, but for all his ego the mouse was extremely knowledgeable about torcs and had certainly come to the same conclusion that years on the streets of Zootopia had helped Bogo make. It did help paint a better picture of the sort of mammal Cuvier must have been; any mammal who believed that torcs could be altered couldn't be all that bright. Bogo rubbed absently at the spot on his shoulder where Cuvier had stabbed him, which had absolutely no lingering pain, and began the slow and tedious task of reading through guard logs.

All of the guards in the palace were required to maintain logs for each and every one of their shifts, and Bogo hoped to try to figure out the route Cuvier had taken into the council room. Perhaps he had taken an unknown secret passage, as Cencerro had suggested, but if there was some sort of gap in the patrol routes he had set up in the palace Bogo wanted to find it right away. Although the palace was, at the moment, under greatly increased guard, it was far from a viable long-term solution. It would take months, at the very least, for him to have any kind of trust in the private soldiers that Cerdo and Cencerro (and, most likely sooner rather than later, Corazón as well) had given over to the City Guard, and extra protection at the palace meant less of it elsewhere. In Bogo's experience, the simple presence of uniformed members of the City Guard on the street was a powerful deterrent for petty crimes, and lacking that deterrent crime would likely spike.

Perhaps back to normal levels, Bogo mused, still feeling a nagging suspicion about the falling crime rates the council had been discussing immediately before the assassination attempt. It was more than possible that someone had consolidated power after Alfonso's arrest, but if there was a new gang of criminals, even one made from the broken remnants of Alfonso's, Bogo had heard no word of it. Bogo sighed, shaking his head as he went back to the interminable logs, trying to avoid chasing down the distracting thoughts that led him to anywhere but his current task.

In the end, after a few hours of careful study and comparison to floor plans of the palace, Bogo came to two very important conclusions. The first was that even accounting for the incredible speed the llama could run at, it just wasn't possible for Cuvier to have made it to the council room without being spotted unless he had one or more guards who had assisted him or had used a secret passageway Bogo didn't know of. The second, which Bogo arrived at as he stood up from his oversized desk and stretched, feeling his back pop satisfyingly as he did so, was that he really needed to sleep. He had already dispatched a message to his wife, hours ago, that he would not be back to the home they shared at his usual time, and Bogo considered whether he had the time to go back at all. His office did have, concealed behind a tapestry that depicted the seal of the City Guard, a small personal room with a cot and a bathroom that were both ever so slightly too small to be entirely comfortable to use. His position as head of the City Guard did not, unfortunately, come with a personal residence, and even on his fairly generous salary he couldn't afford an estate close to the palace. The idea of traveling nearly forty minutes to get to his own bed was made more appealing by the thought of sleeping next to Maria, but he still had to give his statement to the newspapers and had already summoned them to the palace.

Just as Bogo was about to resign himself to a night spent on the uncomfortable cot following an encounter with the mammals from the newspapers that was likely to be nearly as uncomfortable, there was a sudden and vigorous knock on his door. "Captain General!" came a voice he had not expected at all to hear; it was Cencerro.

"Captain General, are you in there?" she asked, and Bogo could hear the excitement in her voice.

"Yes," Bogo called back, and while he started walking towards his door he let one hoof ease itself onto the grip of the macuahuitl he still wore at his waist.

He didn't think Cencerro would be so foolish as to have him attacked in his office if she was behind the attempt on the princess's life, but it seemed unwise to discount the possibility when she was acting in such a manner.

"Good, good," Cencerro said, and her cheerfulness was almost alarming; Bogo had never heard the ewe so happy.

"My mammals found who let the assassin in," she continued, and if anything she suddenly no longer seemed cheerful enough; if she was right it was the sort of victory over Cerdo and Corazón that the pig and the lion would never be able to match or exceed.

Bogo relaxed his grip on his macuahuitl and unlatched his door, taking in the extraordinary sight before him. Cencerro was standing to one side of the doorway, looking especially pleased with herself, and on the other side were two burly rams, both dressed in the livery of Cencerro's holding, on either side of a jaguar Bogo recognized perfectly well. "Jamie?" he asked, and if his disbelief was obvious it didn't matter.

Jamie of the Tecuani Barony wasn't just one of Bogo's most trusted captains; he was the prince consort's significantly younger brother. Unlike his deceased older brother, Jamie had a tawny coat of rosettes as most jaguars did, but his eyes were precisely the same shade of yellow. Sometimes Bogo had seen the ghost of the prince consort in Jamie, from the way he walked to the way he spoke, little reminders of how similar the two brothers had been. It was his eyes that had been the most frequent reminder, but as the jaguar glared at him Bogo found them completely unfamiliar. Never before, either on Fernando's face or on Jamie's, had he ever seen such naked hatred and loathing. "Of course I am," he all but spat, and the two rams on either side of him tightened their grips on his arms, "Had to have Cencerro figure it out, did you?"

Bogo found himself speechless in a way he couldn't understand. It made no possible sense; Jamie had absolutely nothing to gain from the princess's death, as he certainly wasn't in the line of succession to the throne, but there was no denying that the jaguar was acting incredibly guilty. "You're losing your touch," Jamie taunted, and once more Bogo saw nothing of the jaguar he had thought he had known.

The words stung more than they should have, as though the jaguar had looked into his heart and seen his own secret fears that he was beginning to get too old and too comfortable in his position to be effective anymore. Jamie himself had been one of those rare cadets that had given Bogo hope for the city-state after he retired or died; Jamie had joined the City Guard shortly after his brother's death and his rise through the ranks had been so meteoric that Bogo had fully expected him to make captain general someday. "Why?" Bogo asked, and it took him a moment to realize he had spoken the word aloud.

"That little half-blood  _freak_  got my brother killed," Jamie said, and while he couldn't move his arms to gesture towards the royal suites many stories above their heads he still jerked his chin upwards, his ears flat against his skull.

Members of the normal City Guard, apparently alerted by the commotion of Cencerro and her soldiers, had shown up, and seemingly automatically Bogo directed them to take Jamie into custody, all the while unable to believe he hadn't seen it coming. Had he really been so distracted by the petty political bickering of the queen's advisers that he hadn't seen his protege's treachery coming? He had thought that both he and Jamie saw Princess Isabel as the last remaining part of the prince consort. Bogo, so much as he could while leading the City Guard, had taken an almost fatherly pride in how the princess grew and developed as she turned into a worthy heir, and he had thought that Jamie would have taken a similar pride in his niece.

But he had missed Jamie's true feelings so completely that he had endangered the princess; if the queen stripped him of his rank for his failure he would make no protest. He would have to—"Captain General?" Cencerro's voice came, interrupting his thoughts, "Captain General, did you hear me?"

"No, I—" Bogo began, and Cencerro smoothly cut him off, beaming up at him.

"I said, we ought to report this to the queen."

"Yes, of course," Bogo said, and his voice sounded feeble and foolish to his own ears.

As he followed Cencerro up the flight of stairs that led to the royal suites it occurred to Bogo that he had never felt older or weaker.

* * *

**Author's Notes:**

The earliest newspapers developed in about the 17th century in our world, due to the confluence of relatively widespread literacy and the printing press making it economical to produce and buy disposable printed material. However, early newspapers, and indeed even newspapers up until relatively recently, tended to be heavily censored by governments. Sweden was the first country to formalize the freedom of the press, doing so in 1766.

Many heads of governments, or their courts, saw speaking directly to the press as being beneath their dignity; in the US, for example, it was Woodrow Wilson who first held a press conference in office, and what transcripts exist from those meetings suggest that he expected a fair amount of deference from the reporters.

I therefore thought that it was pretty plausible that Bogo would be mildly appalled at the idea of the princess speaking to a reporter directly and would find it perfectly normal for the government to directly give a statement to the press and expect it to be included, without editing, by the city's newspapers.

Although Bogo dismisses it as unimportant, there is a slight difference between the words "cowardly" and "cravenly;" the word "cravenly" can suggest a lack of resistance. The subtle nuances between words, even ones that are largely synonymous, is a part of press releases that can be particularly tricky, as the overall goal is to communicate the intended message to the intended audience.

The distinction between morning and evening papers is an interesting one that our modern world largely lacks, the immediacy of television, radio, and the Internet having mostly supplanted print media, but in the days before those alternatives most major newspapers printed multiple editions a day. The morning editions of the newspapers were largely considered more respectable than evening editions (which included a number of somewhat tawdry papers intended for people returning home from work); it was for this reason that the physician of King George V, in 1936, deliberately gave him a lethal overdose of anesthetic to ensure that the king's death would be reported in the morning press rather than the evening papers as it would have been if the king had held onto life longer.

Making a book with golden pages would certainly be possible, if you could afford to spend the gold to do so. As previously mentioned, gold can be beaten to extraordinary thinness, and if you're writing one-sided you could etch it. As gold is naturally extremely corrosion resistant, it'd be a good material for making something intended to last; this is, for example, why the Voyager Golden Records were gold-plated. In theory, any alien civilization that finds  _Voyager 1_ or  _Voyager 2_ would be able to play back the record, assuming they can understand the instructions engraved on the cover.

The word āmatl is the Nahuatl word for a kind of paper made out of bark, and was widely used in the part of the world that is now Mexico before the conquering Spaniards banned its production. Now known as amate, it is still produced by local artisans, and it's more similar to papyrus than to Western style paper.

Tomas, the mouse who treated Bogo's injured shoulder in chapter 4, gets mentioned again here; I figure that the field of alchemy is sufficiently broad that it's not unreasonable for him to have a number of alchemists reporting to him.

Jaime of the Tecuani Barony also first showed up in chapter 4, although his relationship to the royal family wasn't mentioned at that time.

As always, thanks for reading! I'd love to know what you thought if you're so inclined to leave a comment.


	15. Chapter 15

As she and Nick got closer to the entrance to Phoenix, Judy couldn't help but wrinkle her nose at the smell coming off the waterfalls that flowed into the fissure. It was like an awful combination of a swamp and a privy, the sickly smell of decay mixed with that of much fresher waste. Trying to keep her disgust off her face, as Nick seemed to be doing despite his doubtlessly more sensitive nose, Judy tried turning her attention to the layout of Phoenix itself.

Phoenix, she saw, was entirely on a roughly triangular patch of ground; the unimaginable alchemy that had cracked Quimichpatlan Barony open had created an enormous Y-shaped fissure that the settlement was nestled in. Although the Outer Wall had partially collapsed around Phoenix, what remained still provided it with a great deal of protection. Indeed, although Judy could see that the arms of the fissure extended into the scrub lands beyond the wall, it was still impassible; any invader would have had to cross the incredibly deep chasm. The part of the wall that Phoenix ended against looked to be completely intact, although with some obvious signs of repair, so if there was a way in or out of the settlement beyond the wide bridge they were walking on Judy didn't see it.

Nick, for his part, didn't seem to be bothered by walking on the bridge that connected the three arms of the fissure, but considering that the bridge had to be at least fifty feet wide Judy supposed that he couldn't see off the edge of it any more than she could. As they got closer, Judy could hear all the signs of a prosperous and bustling town, from the clip-clop of hooves against smooth stone streets and the associated creaking and groaning of carriages to the cries of peddlers selling their wares and the screeches of messenger hawks. After even so brief a trip with only Nick for company, it was a welcome return to the feeling that she had gotten when she had first set foot in Zootopia's city center. It was a feeling of being a part of something, of being a small but no less important part of what was possible when mammals worked together.

As they approached the pair of guards who stood on either side of the gateway to Phoenix, which was a drab affair of the same rough white stone blocks that looked to have been salvaged from the parts of the Outer Wall that had collapsed as all the buildings she could see, Judy couldn't help but appreciate seeing fellow members of the City Guard. The pair, a bear and an auroch, seemed more involved in a low conversation they were having with each other than in keeping an eye on mammals approaching, and both wore the rank insignia of a first corporal on their torcs. At seeing mammals wearing torcs again, Judy couldn't help but shoot a glance in Nick's direction, but at some point she hadn't noticed he had put his oddly plain and unadorned bronze torc back on as though it had never come off. Even his expression had shifted into a politely neutral mask, but neither guard seemed to pay them much attention, the auroch simply impatiently gesturing them on with his spear.

As she walked past, Judy caught a snippet of their conversation, not that it made any sense to her.

"—out here, though?" the bear whispered.

"That's what I heard," the auroch said, just as quietly, and though Judy felt a pang of curiosity she kept walking on.

Her assignment didn't officially end until she reported into the local barracks and presented Nick to the commander, but as she stepped past the gateway it occurred to her that she should have asked the guards where the barracks were. The wedge-shaped design of Phoenix seemed to be split by a number of angled streets between buildings that quickly turned and had the sight lines blocked by more buildings. Judy glanced around, trying to find the familiar design of a City Guard barracks, but she saw nothing, just a dizzying array of mammals making their way along the streets, alchemical torches burning brightly from lampposts to banish the coming night. She narrowly stepped out of the way of a horse-drawn carriage clattering past, both the horse pulling the carriage and the passenger calling out for her to watch her step, and nearly stumbled over a loose bit of pavement into a street vendor selling what appeared to be dried pieces of fish on sticks.

"If you keep spinning like that, your head'll come off," Nick said cheerfully, grabbing Judy by the elbow as he waved apologetically at the wolf selling the dubious-looking food, "You don't know where the City Guard barracks are, do you?"

"Well, no," Judy admitted, and Nick chuckled.

"Come on, then, I know the way," Nick said, and despite his heavy-looking pack he managed to make smoothly maneuvering between a passing porcupine couple look effortless.

Judy quickly caught up with him; he had set off for one of the many side streets with an obvious sense of purpose, and Judy didn't doubt that he knew exactly where he was going. "Is there anything you  _don't_ know?" Judy asked, only half-teasing, and Nick smiled enigmatically.

"Oh, not much," he said, rather immodestly, "Only the things  _worth_  knowing."

Their walk to the barracks took only a few minutes, and Judy tried to remember all of the twists and turns it took to get there from the main gate; it seemed almost as though Phoenix had been deliberately designed as a bewildering labyrinth, although all of the mammals they passed seemed to move with a similar sense of purpose as Nick. At last, though, they were standing in front of a building that Judy would have recognized anywhere; it seemed as though every barracks she had ever seen shared the same long, squat, and windowless design, the little details that were different all but insignificant. The Phoenix barracks seemed to be built of blocks a bit more rough-hewn than the guardhouse outside the gate through the Middle Wall, but otherwise it looked virtually identical.

Unlike that guardhouse, it did have neighboring buildings, all of which put the barracks to shame; on one side a rug-maker had put out brilliantly colored examples of their intricate work that stood out dramatically from the drab white stone, and on the other was a tavern from which Judy could hear the near-manic conversations and laughter of mammals having a good time.

The Phoenix City Guard barracks were just as austere inside as they were outside; although the floor plan was perfectly recognizable even to Judy's relatively inexperienced eye, there weren't any of the personalized touches most guard commanders allowed at the desks. There were no family portraits or sculptures or even banners for a favored ōllamaliztli or football team. There were files at each desk, but they were all so neatly organized that there didn't seem to be so much as a page out of place. Although the almost aggressively neat building was almost certainly explained by the preference of the commanding officer of the barracks, Judy realized that there was something rather odd about the barracks. There wasn't so much as a single officer, commissioned or not, that she could see.

Nick, who had come in a step behind Judy, frowned as he joined her in looking around. "It's never  _this_ empty," he said, and Judy nodded her agreement.

It was downright eerie to see a barracks completely abandoned, especially one that was so neat; it gave off no sign of having ever been inhabited, as though a freshly built barracks had been dropped from the sky and never used. Just as Judy was about to ask Nick if he had somehow guided them to a barracks that hadn't opened yet, she heard the click of hooves against the polished stone floor coming from what would be the commanding officer's private office if the floor plan was entirely as she imagined it to be. A few seconds later Judy saw Nick's ears twitch in the direction of the sound a moment before a sheep in the uniform of a lieutenant colonel.

"Enisgn... Tochtli, is it?" the barracks commander said, "Sign here. You can spend the next two night in the officer's quarters. There's a convoy heading back to the city center you'll leave with."

The sheep's voice was just as cold and unemotional as the barracks he commanded, and he thrust a clipboard with a sheet of paper on in towards Judy as he spoke, barely giving her the chance to salute. Each word was clipped and precise, as was his uniform. The quilted red fabric of his tunic showed sharp and seemingly geometrically perfect creases, and the insignia attached to either side of his torc caught the brilliant light of the alchemical torches in the room and were completely free of smudges or lint. His silver breastplate didn't show so much as a whorl from being polished, as though it had been made immediately before he put it on. Even the feathers at his wrist, which Judy knew from experience to be frustratingly difficult to keep in order, were aligned so precisely that they almost didn't seem real.

The ram himself was completely overshadowed by his uniform; his wool had been neatly sheared so short that his rosily pink skin was visible and his features were entirely unremarkable. He was of average height for a sheep, with a build that made it obvious he had not neglected his daily training, and the overall effect was that he almost looked like an illustration out of the City Guard's uniform regulations. "Lieutenant Colonel Cencerro, how nice to see you again!" Nick said, first spreading his paws out in welcome.

Cencerro—and although Judy had never met Lady Alba Cencerro she would be willing to bet the two mammals were related somehow—inclined his head a fraction of an inch in Nick's direction before turning his attention back to Judy, standing stiffly as he waited for her to fill out the form he had given her. The paperwork was straightforward and to the point; it was a simple acknowledgement that she had completed her assignment and Judy quickly finished signing it. As Cencerro took the clipboard back, Judy found the completion of her first official assignment as a member of the City Guard strangely anticlimatic. She certainly hadn't expected the barracks commander to congratulate her for completing so simple a task, but she had held out some kind of hope that he would at least acknowledge she had made it a quick trip.

Instead, he seemed to be completely done with her, not even giving her either a make-work job or especially hated task the way Judy had heard some barracks commanders did for visiting members of the City Guard. Certainly she didn't  _want_ to clean the street outside the barracks with nothing but a toothbrush or re-organize several years of old files, but considering how empty the Phoenix barracks were Judy found it bizarre Cencerro hadn't even mentioned assigning her to keep watch. "Sir," Judy said as Cencerro began to turn around to go the way he had come, "Is there something going on?"

She gestured around the empty office area. "I don't know if you saw it in my file, but I was at the top of—" Judy began, but Cencerro interrupted, his tone just as bland as before.

"Nothing that requires your attention, Ensign," the ram said, "The Phoenix City Guard has it under control."

"Has  _what_ under control?" Judy asked, and then hastily added, "Sir?"

Cencerro's mouth, which had previously been nothing more than a narrow slash across his face, thinned further. "Nothing that requires your attention, Ensign," he repeated, "You don't know this town. You would only waste time."

"Oh, I wouldn't mind guiding her around," Nick interjected cheerfully, "It's too late to bother setting up a booth in the market anyway."

Judy suspected that Nick was just as curious about what could possibly empty out the barracks as she was, and whether he was genuinely interested in helping or simply trying to curry favor she appreciated the offer. "It's not a matter for a civilian, Nicholas," Cencerro said rather stiffly as his eyes narrowed, "You should leave."

There was a long moment, in which the ram simply stared at the fox, and then Nick shrugged. "Always a pleasure, lieutenant colonel," he said, and it was a testament to Nick that he made the words sound almost genuine.

Nick shot a questioning look at Judy as he wordlessly asked her if she would be leaving with him, but Cencerro spoke before she could respond in any way. "Come to my office, Ensign," Cencerro said, which only made Judy more curious as to what was going on; it was very odd for him to first claim not to have anything for her to do and then want to speak with her alone.

Nick clapped his paws together. "Well, I hope the two of you have a good talk but I really ought to go," he said, as though Cencerro had not just bluntly told him to leave; the fox seemed to have a real talent for simply ignoring awkward situations as though they had gone the way he wanted them to.

He turned to leave, but he took his time walking out. "I'll have a booth in the market the next few days before I put my bid in," Nick murmured on his way past Judy, "It's in the biggest square in town, you can't miss it."

Judy nodded slightly to show she had heard him, and then, just like that, he was gone. The door clicked shut behind him with what struck Judy as a grim finality, and she had plenty of time to mull it over as she followed Cencerro back to his office. It had just as little personality as the rest of the building; were it not for the name—LT. COL. D. CENCERRO—carved into the wall beside the door and the neat stack of files on the modest desk, it would have looked as though it had never been used.

"I apologize, Ensign," Cencerro said as he took his chair and gestured for Judy to take the one opposite him, "But it's not a matter we can speak about in front of a  _fox_."

For the first time since she had met the lieutenant colonel, Judy heard what sounded like genuine emotion in his voice; his distaste for Nick was obvious. "Especially one that's stolen the secrets of alchemy," Cencerro added, "Did he tell you why he's  _really_ here?"

"Sir?" Judy said, not entirely sure what the ram was getting at, but Cencerro smiled sourly and Judy was surprised at how much more animated he appeared without Nick present.

It seemed as though he didn't just hold distaste for Nick but genuinely loathed him, as though his stiffness had simply been his way of holding his emotions in check, his words not nearly as clipped as they had been. "He's not just here to bid on a public works project, I can tell you that," Cencerro said, "He's always skulking about here, has been for years. Completely untrustworthy, just like every fox. And now with what happened at the palace... If you have any idea what he's up to I want to know."

Judy's mind flew instantly to the book she had promised to buy for Nick, but it was absurd to think that he would have gone to such efforts when there surely had to be a dozen different ways he could get his paws on it if he really wanted to. Just because he was a fox and an alchemist didn't mean that he had some ulterior motive; if she, as a bunny, could become a soldier because she wanted to keep the city safe and help make it better, Judy saw no reason a fox couldn't want to become an alchemist for a noble reason. Not that he had ever said  _why_ or really even  _how_ he managed to master the notoriously difficult and secretive form of magic, but Judy had no small amount of faith in him. He was, so far as she could tell, a good fox, no matter what Cencerro thought. "Nothing he's mentioned, sir," Judy said at last, "But what happened at the palace?"

Judy was just as interested in getting Cencerro's attention away from Nick as to what could have possibly happened at the palace, and from the gloomy way the ram sighed she knew it couldn't be anything good. "I didn't want that fox spreading rumors, but you were right to ask why the barracks are so empty," he said, pulling a folded envelope from within one of the files on his desk.

Although Judy had never sent a letter by messenger hawk—she had never known anyone who it would be practical to send such a letter to—she had received exactly one such letter before and she recognized the envelope as being identical to the one her acceptance letter to the academy had arrived in. Or rather, nearly identical. While the envelope she had received had been sealed with red wax, the alchemical symbols etched into it burning white to show it hadn't been tampered with, the envelope Cencerro showed her had the remains of a purple wax seal. Although the alchemical symbols no longer glowed, the seal having already been broken, Judy recognized that the seal wasn't just the symbol of the City Guard; it had been sent from the desk of Captain General Bogo himself. "An assassin slipped into the palace and nearly killed the princess," Cencerro said, pulling the letter out of its envelope although he did not show it to her.

"Is she all right?" Judy asked once she could manage to articulate a thought, "How?"

The lieutenant colonel held up one hoof, forestalling her questions no matter how badly she wanted to demand answers. "She's fine, but there are some leads on how the assassin might have managed to slip in. Leads that trace back here, to Phoenix. I've got every soldier I can spare trying to run down some blood magicians, and now you show up."

"Sir, if there's anything I can do to help—" Judy began, but he cut her off.

"It's an interesting coincidence, wouldn't you say?" Cencerro mused, stroking at his chin with the hoof that wasn't holding the letter.

"Sir?" Judy asked, but she had a sinking feeling she already knew what Cencerro was thinking.

"An assassin using powerful quauhxicallis tries killing the princess, quauhxicallis that might have been made here in Phoenix. And the very same day the news gets to us, so does a fox alchemist."

"Sir, I don't think he would do that," Judy said, trying to pick her words as carefully as possible, "I don't think—"

"Ensign Tochtli," Cencerro interrupted, "You've known him for all of two days. Surely you realize criminals can lie, don't you?"

"I—" Judy began, but she couldn't finish the thought.

Had Nick spent their entire trip together tricking her? She didn't want to believe it; surely Cencerro was just grasping at straws, allowing his dislike for Nick to let him envision the fox as a part of an awful conspiracy. But there was no denying that Nick was an odd mammal, from being an alchemist despite also being a predator to his carefree attitude towards his torc. "You understand," Cencerro said, seeming to take her hesitation for agreement, "I have a special assignment for you for the next few days, Ensign. I want you to figure out what that fox is up to."

He looked at Judy expectantly, and all she could do was nod, hoping the conflict roiling in her mind wasn't visible on her face.

* * *

**Author's Notes:**

Up until this chapter, all of the members of the City Guard who have shown up have been officers, with this chapter marking the first appearance of enlisted soldiers. I figure it's one of the little things that distinguishes the main part of the city with a settlement at its literal edge; it's simply neither a prestigious assignment or one that makes the soldiers particularly noticeable to the higher ups. First corporal is a fairly low rank, but technically speaking as a commissioned officer, even at the lowest possible rank, Judy outranks all non-commissioned officers. However, it's a very foolish ensign who tries pulling rank on senior enlisted personnel.

An auroch is a now-extinct species of cattle that was the ancestor of modern domesticated cattle, which went extinct in the real-world sometime around the mid-17th century.

The game ōllamaliztli is a real Aztec sport, sometimes known now as the Aztec ballgame, is poorly understood in the modern era. There were likely several different but similar games, or the rules may have changed over time, but there are plenty of surviving ball courts that attest to its popularity. Football is, of course, association football, or soccer, which has a history that traces back centuries (or possibly even longer). Professional sports are a relatively modern concept for the games that are currently played, with most dating to the late 19th or early 20th century, but the concept of professional athletes is not. At the highest levels, ancient gladiators were very well paid and even endorsed products the way modern athletes do, and Aztec games seem to have had a ritualistic element to them that I think could have plausibly evolved into something like a modern sport league.

One of the major reasons that letters used to be sealed with wax was to show that they hadn't been tampered with. Generally, you have to break the seal to open it, which is a useful way of showing if someone's been reading your mail. I figured that it made sense, considering the near-ubiquitous appearance of alchemy in this story, that they would use similar anti-tampering methods to what was mentioned on the coins as an anti-counterfeiting measure back in chapter 5.

The two story lines in this story aren't exactly happening concurrently; the chapters from Bogo's perspective covered a significantly shorter amount of time, and this chapter demonstrates that the chapters didn't start in synch either. Hopefully the way I wrote it makes it clear enough, but as always I'm interested in hearing what people think if they're so inclined to leave a comment. Thanks for reading, and if you celebrate it I hope you have a very Merry Christmas!


	16. Chapter 16

Cencerro was all but skipping up the stairs that led to the royal suites in a manner more befitting a lamb than one of the queen's chief advisers, but as Bogo followed along behind her simply trudging up the interminable staircase was the best that he could manage. Why hadn't he seen Jamie's betrayal coming? The question consumed him, and the worst part was that as they made their way up floor after luxurious floor an answer came to him.

It had been weeks, maybe months, since he had really had any sort of conversation with Jamie. It had started off reasonably enough; after Jamie had taken up his post in the palace Bogo hadn't wanted to give the impression of favoritism, and he had kept a conscious and deliberate distance. But it wasn't just the distance he had kept from the jaguar that had cost him the opportunity to notice any sign that he had harbored a murderous loathing for the princess. It was... Bogo prevented himself from heaving a sigh, no matter how unlikely it was that Cencerro would notice with how distracted she seemed by her victory. It was as though he simply hadn't given the jaguar any thought for weeks.

Bogo could have blamed the endless distractions of his job, from overseeing the security on yet another round of renovations to the palace and its grounds to Alfonso's arrest (which at the time had been a  _welcome_  distraction from the day-to-day dealings of the palace), but the simple truth was that he should have done more. When the prince consort had died, he had spent more time than was necessary to fulfill the obligations of his job with the grieving family, and that had included Jamie. He had been proud of the young jaguar when he had joined the academy, and even more so when he had graduated at the top of his class. Bogo had followed each and every one of Jamie's career milestones, always impressed by his skill and devotion to duty. Looking back on it now, though, what had he missed? Had the jaguar already been plotting to murder the princess years ago when he had joined the City Guard? Or had it come later? Surely the tipping point must have been at or before he had been posted to the palace, but how much time and effort had Jamie put into his plan?

Bogo knew he  _could_ have noticed it, if only he had been paying closer attention. If only he had still been in his prime. When he had been younger he had prided himself on his instinct for trouble; by the time he had made lieutenant he had earned a reputation for spotting criminals before they acted. But those days of walking the streets felt as though they had been eons ago, and he felt as though the focus and attention he had once had were long-since dulled and blunted. He had learned to manage mammals and paperwork, even to extinguish the worst of the temper that had nearly gotten him kicked out of the academy, but he had lost something in the process. Despite himself, Bogo's lips twitched in the ghost of a smile, remembering the time he had challenged a fellow cadet—Raoul Llanuras, the largest and meanest elephant he had ever met—to a fistfight over some slight he couldn't recall. The fight had lasted all of three seconds, not that he could—Bogo shook his head slightly, banishing the memory.

His attention was the other problem, the one he hadn't admitted to anyone. Maybe he was just growing old and sentimental the way his own grandmother had, and not feeble and senile the way his grandfather had, but he couldn't deny to himself that his focus wasn't what it had once been. Jamie had been important to him, once, not quite like a son but perhaps like a nephew, and he had let their relationship simply drift away like a balloon on a windy day. And for what? Lengthy files and reports no one would read, meetings that no one would remember, and security decisions that had done nothing to keep the princess safe. He had failed, and honor demanded that he submit himself to whatever punishment the queen saw fit to order.

It was on that gloomy thought that, for the second time that day, Bogo found himself in front of the massive gilded doors to the royal apartments. As though the gods themselves had taken an interest in making his day as bad as possible, the two mammals Bogo wanted to see least—Cerdo and Corazón—were already there, apparently awkwardly waiting. To Bogo's eye, Cerdo looked mildly interested, the pig's thick brow wrinkled slightly, but Corazón looked as though he was bursting with nervous energy in a way unlike anything Bogo had ever seen him show. The lion's seemingly perpetual charming expression was completely gone, a frown tugging at his lips as he paced back and forth. "Captain General, Lady Cencerro," Corazón said, and Bogo thought he even heard a slightly anxious note in his voice, "What's going on?"

"My soldiers caught the mammal behind the awful attack on the princess," Cencerro said before Bogo could even think of how he would have answered the question, and her voice was very nearly sweet as syrup.

When Corazón was surprised, Bogo thought, he didn't look particularly charming or powerful; the lion's shock was plainly evident, his chin suddenly seeming weak. "You've caught?" he began, his voice uncertainly turning it into a question, but Cerdo quickly interrupted.

"Then I think congratulations are in order," Cerdo beamed; the pig had apparently recovered from his own surprise much more quickly than Corazón, and true to his words he extended one hoof to Cencerro to shake.

"I'm sure the queen will be quite pleased," Cerdo continued, his generous gut wobbling as he firmly shook Cencerro's hoof, "Who was it?"

"I'll explain everything to the queen," Cencerro said, "I'm sure she won't mind either of you being there too."

Bogo thought he caught a flicker of annoyance run across Corazón's face; the lion wasn't stupid and was clearly perfectly aware that he was being patronized. Cencerro was clearly enjoying every minute of her triumph, and Bogo suspected that she even savored the sharp nod she gave the guards outside the door. The two guards went through the ritual of announcing the visitors, and the great golden doors swung open noiselessly on their massive hinges. It was all perfectly mundane, a ritual that Bogo had been through countless times, which made what happened next have the casual impossibility of a nightmare.

The guard on the left of the door, a tall black wolf, suddenly clutched at his throat with a horrible gurgling cough, his fingers sliding around the elaborately ornamented hilt of a dagger that had simply appeared there. Bogo's reaction was automatic, one hoof going for the macuahuitl at his waist, but before his fingers had even closed around the hilt the guard on the right side of the door cried out as well as she collapsed.

It even  _felt_  like a nightmare as Bogo spun around, time seeming to stretch out even more than it had when he had taken the colibri quauhxicalli. His arm and weapon seemed impossibly slow and heavy, and Bogo expected to feel a thrown knife in his neck before he even had a chance to see who had killed the guards. There was only one mammal it could be, though, and when Bogo completed his turn, his macuahuitl drawn, he saw he was right.

Jamie was a terrible sight to behold as he raced up the stairs with the same impossible speed as Jorge de Cuvier, moving so fast that Bogo more caught impressions of his appearance than really saw him. The jaguar's tawny fur was stained and clumped with blood that didn't look to be his own. His uniform was torn in places, his polished breastplate with its delicate engravings and his feathered bracelets gone, but the tendons of his arms and neck bulged grotesquely as if stretched by some unseen force. His lips were peeled back from his muzzle in a horrible grimace, his fangs fully visible, and there was nothing but hate visible in his eyes. His torc, the only thing that allowed him to kill guards with impunity, glittered in the light where it wasn't dull and splattered with red droplets.

Bogo was dimly aware of the queen's three advisors reacting, far too slowly, to the mammal who had appeared behind them, none of them having even turned around by the time Jamie had closed nearly twenty feet in the blink of an eye. The knives he had thrown seemed to have been the only weapons Jamie had brought with him, but his legs were a blur as he lunged at Bogo, claws outstretched and face twisted with rage, and—

* * *

Bogo woke up and had to repress a groan. When he had still been a cadet, and still able to drink octli, he had drank half-a-dozen bottles with the same elephant who had nearly re-arranged his face the night after their fight. After that night his head had felt like it was full of throbbing, burning needles, a torture he wouldn't have wished or ordered on his worst enemy, and the way he felt as he woke up was nearly as bad. It was odd, he mused, how his thoughts sometimes came full circle in ways he would have never expected. It had been decades since he and Raoul had made up after that one-sided fistfight and— Bogo shook his head and immediately regretted it.

His head suddenly felt as though all of those burning needles were being mercilessly hammered in, and Bogo couldn't help but take in a sharp breath. He looked around, trying to find something to take his mind off the pain, and had a moment's disorientation before realizing he was in the palace's infirmary. It wasn't a part of the palace he spent much time in; the queen and princess received any treatment they needed in the royal suites, and Bogo simply hadn't injured himself very often while on palace duty. Mercifully, however, the normally bright alchemical torches had been shrouded to dim their light, and the cavernous space was full of pooling shadows. As the infirmary had been built for the servants and officers of the palace rather than for the royalty, its layout lacked virtually all of the grandeur that most of the palace had, with walls of plain white stone and a vaulted ceiling without any kind of ornamentation. Even the beds, such as the one he was in, were nothing special, just plain iron frames with stiff mattresses.

It hurt even to move his eyes, but Bogo looked around slowly. He seemed to have the entire infirmary to himself; although there was a metal framework hanging from the ceiling so that curtains could be drawn around any of the beds, which varied dramatically in size to accommodate any species, none of the other beds seemed to be occupied and there weren't any other mammals he could see. Bogo frowned, and felt something stiff on his face wrinkle.

Slowly, trying to do his best to keep his head still, he reached up to touch his face with one hoof, feeling what could only be bandages covering just about the entire lower half of his face, tingling slightly with the healing power of alchemy. He remembered Jamie attacking him, but—"You had a concussion," the queen said, and in his surprise Bogo sat up and then just about keeled over again from the explosion of pain.

Trying not to wince, Bogo turned his head slowly and saw that the queen had been sitting at the head of his bed, outside his line of sight. "Your majesty," he said.

His jaw felt incredibly stiff and his voice wasn't much more than a weak croak. "The princess?" he asked, "Is she—"

"Don't speak," Queen Lana commanded, her voice briefly imperious before it fell to a more conversational tone.

"You saved my daughter," she said, and after a slight pause added, "Again."

She fell silent and just as Bogo was beginning to debate whether he should risk asking a question when she continued. "The traitor escaped," she said, "Bleeding everywhere, the guards said. Do you remember striking him?"

Bogo shook his head from side to side as slowly as he could. Everything that had happened after Jamie had lunged at him with the same terrifying speed that Jorge de Cuvier had possessed simply wasn't there, which he knew was not uncommon for concussions. He still didn't remember any of his decades-ago fight with Raoul, although that might have been a mercy. Bogo was overcome again with that peculiar sensation of his memory looping back on itself, but he managed to avoid the temptation to try shaking his head clear. He could remember drawing his macuahuitl, and even if he couldn't remember using it he had seen what it could do to a mammal when he put all of his strength behind a swing. Jamie might already have bled out—but he might not have. The quauhxicalli that Jorge de Cuvier had used was enough proof that Jamie had outside help, and it seemed unfortunately plausible that there might still be a traitor in the palace.

The queen sighed, interrupting his thoughts. "You're the only one who managed to hit him. He killed six guards on his way to the royal apartments before they could even act," she said, and no matter how she tried to hide it Bogo could see her despair.

Six families had just senselessly lost a son or a daughter, and for some of those families it'd be a wife or a husband, a mother or a father. Six guards had, by the cold chance of their duty rosters, lost their lives, and Bogo hadn't even managed to stop the mammal responsible. He would have his own grief for his lost soldiers, but there was still a job to do and Bogo pushed the emotion aside. "Advisors?" he asked, and the queen seemed to understand the intent behind his question.

"Unharmed, for all the good they did," she said, "I would have expected more out of Corazón, at least."

The queen stood up and Bogo saw, but was not surprised, that she was holding his sabre. She had to carry it with both hooves, it was so large for her, but it was unmistakably his; unlike the officers who had come from the ranks of nobility, Bogo hadn't been able to afford an elaborately ornamented sword when he made the rank of captain. Instead, he had gotten a bluntly functional and unadorned blade, which he had continued to carry even after the point where he could have afforded a nicer-looking sword. On the rare occasions that he thought about it at all, Bogo liked what it told other mammals to see the Captain General of the City Guard carry a sabre that was only a weapon and not an ornament.

He had expected to be stripped of his rank and his position in the royal apartments, his sabre taken away from him at the same time as his torc and its emblems, but he supposed that it was a small act of kindness on the queen's part to wait until he was awake to do so. "You've put me in an awkward spot, Bogo," she said, and he couldn't help but notice that she hadn't used his rank, "The mammal who very nearly managed to arrange the murder of my daughter was your protégé. A mammal who clearly had some additional help, possibly within the palace itself. And you, as the Captain General of my City Guard, completely failed to see either plot coming. Or perhaps you chose not to see either plot. And when the mastermind was caught, based on the work of one of my advisors, he somehow managed to make his way back toward the princess, killing every member of my guard he came across. Until he came across you, who managed to drive him off despite not using a quauhxicalli yourself. "

The queen wasn't yelling, but her voice was all but shaking with anger, her words cold and precise. Bogo opened his mouth to speak, but the queen, somewhat clumsily, pointed his own sword at him and he fell silent. "You understand, I'm sure, that I've been advised to strip you of your rank and throw you in your own dungeons for questioning. If nothing else, I have to appoint someone more suitable to the rank of Captain General. Lady Cencerro even suggested her cousin Diego might make an appropriate candidate, considering his experience managing Phoenix."

If the queen did replace him with Diego Cencerro, there were far worse candidates she could have chosen; although Bogo had not had any input in the sheep's posting as the commander of the Phoenix settlement's branch of the City Guard, the lieutenant commander was at the very least competent if not particularly outstanding in any way. "I do owe her my favor for uncovering a plot you could not, after all. Therefore..."

Although Bogo's bed was low to the ground, the queen was still so short that she had to stretch to reach out with Bogo's sabre and tap him on either shoulder. "I name you Lord Bogo and give you command of the lands the traitor held."

For a moment, Bogo couldn't do anything but look at the queen in dumbfounded amazement at what she had just done. She had just made him a member of the nobility, something he hadn't expected at all, although it did explain in retrospect why she didn't have any guards at her side. He couldn't understand  _why_ she had done it until she gave a delicate little laugh, apparently amused at his puzzlement. "You'll be retiring from your post as Captain General once your replacement is trained and ready to take over, but I think you'll be quite busy with your new duties."

"Your majesty?" Bogo managed, his surprise making even his croak of a voice almost completely flat with shock.

"I'm allowed to choose any member of the nobility to be a part of my council. Three is traditional, but four is not unheard of," she said, and instantly Bogo realized what she had done.

She had forced him out without making him go anywhere, making a political play that let her punish him for his failures without really punishing him at all. It was a remarkable display of trust in his abilities despite his failures, although the queen laid it all out as dispassionately as though she had been discussing the weather. "I'll expect you to see your investigation through, Lord Bogo."

"Yes, your majesty," Bogo replied.

"I'm pleased to hear you understand this opportunity, Lord Bogo," she said, and the implication of what would happen if he failed again didn't need to be said for him to understand, "Oh, and one more thing. While you were indisposed, the princess took it upon herself to speak to the reporters. That won't happen again either, will it?"

"No, your majesty," Bogo replied, and the queen inclined her head slightly.

"Now rest up, I hear you have some blood magicians to interrogate," she said, and with that she left his sabre at his side and walked out of the infirmary without another word.

Once she was gone, Bogo allowed his head to gently fall back against his pillow; if anything the throbbing pain was even worse now that he knew what he was in for. He had already failed twice, but Bogo vowed there wouldn't be a third time.

* * *

**Author's Notes:**

As this is the last chapter that I'll post in 2018, I wanted to take some time to reflect on some things before getting to the usual chapter-specific stuff. First and foremost, I want to link to an amazing gift that I received from TheWyvernsWeaver; he drew an incredible piece of cover art for my first story, "Black and White, Red and Blue." It's an incredible honor for me, and the care, skill, and effort that were put into it is truly remarkable!

<https://www.deviantart.com/thewyvernsweaver/art/Red-and-Blue-778760822>

That's a story that I started in 2016, and as I write this now, nearly two years have passed since it ended. A lot of things have changed in that time. I like to think that I've gotten better as a writer since my first work, and certainly the fandom isn't as active as it was when that story started. But the fandom, and the incredible people in it,  _is_  still active. Even almost three years after the movie came out, there are still people writing stories and drawing art and otherwise engaging creatively with the property. That's remarkable to see, and I hope that you find my stories to be a worthy contribution to the body of incredible fan content that's come out.

As for me, I have no intentions of stopping any time soon. I simply have too many stories left that I want to tell, and I am honored to have an audience for them. Thank you so much for reading and for all of the comments, the kudos, the favorites, and the follows! Since the last chapter this story hit the milestones of 200 kudos on A3O and 100 follows on FF, and that's all because of readers like you. Believe me, the support that I've gotten is incredible and it means so much to me to have people interested in seeing what'll happen next in my work. On a related note, I've also finalized my decision on the next story that I post. Once "Ouroboros" ends, my next work will be a 1960s spy AU, set against the backdrop of the Cold War. I hope that you'll enjoy it once it starts!

As for this story, and this chapter, my notes are below:

Raoul Llanuras, the elephant who apparently easily beat a young Bogo in a fistfight, takes his surname from the Spanish word for plains.

Interestingly enough, when Bogo references his relationship with Jamie drifting away like a balloon, that's something that Europeans and Aztecs independently came up with. Aztecs made what were very possibly the first balloon animals, inflating animal intestines and shaping them into effigies that were then sacrificed to the gods. In order for balloons to float, they need to be filled with a lighter than air gas, which in early floating balloons was hydrogen gas. As the Hindenburg disaster in 1937 clearly showed, however, hydrogen is extremely flammable. Although helium, an incombustible noble gas, had been discovered in 1895, at the time of the Hindenburg disaster the US was essentially the sole source of useful quantities of helium, which was found in natural gas fields.

In chapter 8, Bogo remembered the incident that permanently turned his stomach against being able to drink octli, which happened after he became an officer. I imagine Bogo in his youth wasn't quite the same character he is in his middle age, which this chapter gives some hints about.

I actually received a question after the last chapter from Cimar of Turalis WildeHopps about what would happen if a member of the City Guard went rogue. Although I did provide an answer, I hopefully managed to avoid saying that would spoil this one; torcs can't be changed remotely, meaning that a guard that still has their torc can hurt others as Jamie did.

As always, thanks for reading, and I'd love to hear from you if you're so inclined! I also hope you have a wonderful and happy 2019!


	17. Chapter 17

As Judy walked along the streets of Phoenix, trying to find the city square, she couldn't help but turn the lieutenant colonel's parting words over in her head. "Be careful out there, ensign," Cencerro had said, and then he gestured at the golden torc he wore at his neck, "We do our best to keep Phoenix safe, but until the Wall is repaired these don't work."

He had smiled blandly, and Judy had no idea what the sheep was trying to convey. Certainly it hadn't been a friendly smile; his eyes had remained cold and hard, making the expression seem especially fake. Perhaps he had merely been patronizing her, as though he thought so little of her he felt the need to say the obvious. She had known, before even meeting Nick, that torcs didn't work beyond the Middle Wall, and if she hadn't Nick's removal of his own torc would have only emphasized the point. It was possible, she supposed, that Cencerro was only being cynical about the prospects of ever repairing the Outer Wall completely enough to allow it to work as an alchemical array. From what she had learned in school, the conversion of the Inner and Middle Walls to function as part of the system that made the torcs work had taken the better part of a decade, but she had never learned the details of what had been involved and knew she probably wouldn't have understood them anyway. Nick would probably know, though, and at the thought Judy came to a stop and pressed herself against the nearest building.

She was on one the countless streets that ran diagonally through Phoenix before branching off in another direction, the buildings looming over the street on either side from crazed protrusions that cast shadows and broke up the even glow of the alchemical torches set on poles. She had changed out of her uniform and into simple civilian clothes, and if anyone was paying enough attention to her to notice her City Guard torc they definitely didn't show it. Foot traffic and the occasional carriage rattled past her, and her ears caught the sounds of dozens of passing conversations, from mammals dining on restaurant balconies above her to the gabble and chatter of the mammals pushing themselves through the throngs filling the street itself. Judy was alone, though, and the thought of Nick only brought with it the promise she had made Cencerro.  _Was_  Nick up to something? Something involving an attempt to kill the princess?

Judy sighed as she pressed herself thinner up against the wall to let an elephant who had to keep turning and ducking to get down the street get past her without brushing his elaborately brocaded jacket against her face. It wasn't that she found the idea of someone wanting to kill the princess difficult to believe—back home in the Totchli Barony, she had heard more than a few mammals talking darkly about how the royal family had polluted their bloodline by allowing a jaguar in—but the royal palace was supposed to be the most secure location in all of Zootopia. She had only ever seen Captain General Bogo once and had never spoken to him, but his reputation just about approached being legendary. If someone could figure out a way past the most elaborate security measures he could devise, what did it say about that mammal? They'd have to be exceptionally skilled in magic, probably. They'd have to be clever, certainly. They would have to be, in short, someone very much like Nick.

And yet, Judy hadn't mentioned the promise she had made Nick to help him get a book to Cencerro. It had been a lie of omission, but it had still been a lie, the first she had ever told a superior officer. She wanted to believe that he was innocent, that it was just Cencerro's own obvious dislike of the fox making him consider an unlikely possibility. Maybe it was even just Cencerro's way of dismissing her by giving her a meaningless task instead of letting her help with tracking down the blood magicians he had mentioned. Just because Nick was a fox didn't mean that he had to be evil. And yet...

Nick and the lieutenant colonel obviously had some kind of history together, but she hadn't heard either of their sides. Maybe Cencerro did have a legitimate reason to dislike him. And, no matter how much Judy wanted to believe he was innocent, she couldn't put a finger on why. He was, after all, a supremely suspicious mammal. Judy had never even heard of a predator being an alchemist before meeting him, let alone a fox, and he had seemed amazingly skilled at the magic. She did have the most beautiful sabre she had ever seen wrapped in her bedroll in the officer's quarters that Cencerro had assigned her for her stay in Phoenix, and she still had the little golden carrot in her pocket.

Judy dug around in her pocket until her fingers grasped the cool metal of the golden carrot, and as she ran a finger down the smooth surface she realized why she wanted to believe that Cencerro's instincts were wrong. Nick was the first friend she had made since she had left the family farm to join the City Guard. He was surprisingly kind, no matter how much he teased, and he seemed to genuinely enjoy her company. She remembered how he had looked, how he had felt, as she had groomed the beautiful and luxurious fur of his tail; he was—

Judy laughed at herself as she let go of the little ornament, letting it slip back into the depths of her pocket. She was being ridiculous, she told herself; she could do her job and still hope that Nick was innocent. If Nick was what he seemed to be, she could report back to Cencerro that his fears had been completely unfounded and that would be that. Agonizing over the possibilities wouldn't do anything, and Judy turned her attention back to her original goal.

She had left the barracks with the intent of finding the square where she had promised Nick they would meet the following morning and with finding a place that served a decent dinner. After a few days of somewhat wilted rations the idea of fresh produce had her mouth watering; nothing she had eaten since leaving the Tochtli Barony had been quite as fresh as what she had helped her family grow, but surely Phoenix had to grow most of its own food. Although she hadn't had any success yet in finding the square, finding food seemed if anything too easy; after less than ten minutes of walking she had passed nearly a dozen restaurants or street vendors selling food that looked and smelled amazing.

With her newfound resolve to stop worrying over what Nick might or might not be, she eventually chose a particularly cozy-looking restaurant run by a plump and friendly hedgehog who turned out to be only too happy to give her directions to the public square. After a delicious and surprisingly cheap meal of leafy greens, Judy was on her way again, doing her best to follow the complicated series of turns. Eventually, though, she turned a corner and knew that she must have found the right place.

Like much of the layout of Phoenix that she had seen so far, the square looked as though it had been created by someone randomly drawing straight lines through the wedge-shaped piece of land that the town occupied; it wasn't actually a square at all. Instead, it was an irregular pentagon, with one particularly long side and not so much as a single right angle. Compared to the heart of Zootopia, where all the streets around the royal palace that stood at the heart of the city-state fell into symmetrical concentric perfection for more than a quarter mile, it was ugly and chaotic and suggested a complete lack of planning.

Despite it, or perhaps because of it, Phoenix's main city square was a riot of activity that put everything else Judy had seen so far to shame. The space was the size of two or three city blocks, a large fountain at what was more or less the center, and a bit more than half of the square was taken up with a wild variety of vendors selling anything and everything Judy could imagine. The stalls themselves varied in size incredibly, and while they were all set up neatly enough Judy could see no rhyme or reason to how they were laid out. An enormous hippo who looked to be made of pure muscle had a portable forge and a grindstone that he was using to sharpen a knife for a wolf who was only tiny in comparison to the tinker. In the space next to him, nearly completely dwarfed by the hippo's forge, was an otter scribing a letter for a pig and shooting dirty looks at the hippo whenever the sparks from the grindstone shot toward her. Some of the stalls had tents set up, the fabric glowing from within from the light of alchemical torches, and others were set atop elaborate rugs or simply the bare stone of the street. Mammals milled about, some patiently waiting their turn for the vendor they wanted to buy something from to be free and others engaged in shouting matches as to who would be next that looked almost as though they would devolve into brawls.

There had to be two or three hundred vendors, and the noise was incredible, everything from vendors loudly disparaging the quality of their competitors to urchins promising to hold a place in line for a nominal fee. As Judy wandered about, taking care not to be stepped on or step on someone smaller than she was, she thought that the service the young and dirty mammals promised seemed worthwhile; some of the vendors had lines with dozens of mammals in them although the sun had already set. Judy couldn't actually see the vendor with the longest line, but they stuck out in a rather gaudy fashion from not just their immediate neighbors but the entire square.

While some of the tents that the vendors had were particularly elaborate, like miniature castles made of cloth complete with jauntily waving banners, one stall had what looked like a golden tower filling the space. It rose three stories above the ground, tapering to a sharp point, taller even than a stall set up by a giraffe selling something that smelled dangerously alcoholic, and looked to be actually made seamlessly of pure gold polished to a mirror shine. The light of the various alchemical torches other vendors had set up bounced off it, emphasizing its faceted perfection, and Judy wasn't surprised to see that above the doorway there was the ouroboros symbol of the Alchemist Guild worked in gold and set with diamonds. That, she supposed, would be Nick's competition for the bid he planned on putting in, and if she hadn't already seen him demonstrate his skill she might have thought he had absolutely no chance of winning it.

The golden tower certainly seemed impressive enough, but whether it had taken more skill or effort to make than Nick's sabre she couldn't even guess at; for all she knew Nick's demonstration of skill in their sparring match might be as impressive to whoever had made the gaudy tower as the tower itself seemed to be to the mammals waiting to enter. A squirrel dressed in blue robes sparingly embroidered with arcane symbols in copper, a highly polished bronze torc at his neck with an oversized golden ouroboros symbol set on it, was walking back and forth near the tower, and in a surprisingly loud voice considering his diminutive size was promising the miracles of alchemy his master could perform. If the young squirrel, who had to be an apprentice, could be believed, his master could cure anything short of death itself and craft any item that a mammal could imagine.

Compared to how the few alchemists Judy had seen in Zootopia's heart had acted, almost as though they thought they were above other mammals and to so much as interact with them was beneath their dignity, it was surprising to see an alchemist behaving just like any other vendor. Judy had seen fair day vendors in the Tochtli Barony who had been more reserved, but she supposed it was just another part of how Phoenix was different. It seemed almost as though the mammals were less reserved, more freely willing to jostle past each other when they knew that their torcs couldn't cause injury, and as a result they were louder and bolder.

Whatever the cause, though, the square was still loud and packed with mammals, and Judy had begun to turn around to make her way back to the barracks for the night when she caught a glimpse of a familiar shade of red. At first she thought she had mistaken the coloring of a passing tigress, but then she briefly saw Nick working his way through the crowd, moving with a clear sense of purpose as he looked up and down the aisles.

Judy remembered that he had mentioned that Phoenix's central market divided its spaces by lot and realized that he must be looking for something specific but didn't know exactly where it would be. She did her best to creep after him as carefully as she could to avoid being spotted; it seemed to be the perfect opportunity to keep her promise to Cencerro. She told herself that whatever he was looking for as he moved through the crowd of mammals with a grace that she couldn't help but admire would be perfectly innocent, although it was hard to imagine what he could search for that would be particularly incriminating. At last, though, he stopped in front of a stall that even with her lack of expectations Judy found surprising.

It was one of the plainer and smaller spots, especially compared to the more elaborate displays like the one the Alchemist Guild had put up; there wasn't even a rug on the ground, let alone a tent. Instead, there was just a golden eagle somewhat larger than Judy was, blinders over its head and a series of leads tying it down, and a little shrew Judy at first almost didn't see. The shrew looked to be female; she was a bit plump, but that might have just been emphasized by what she was wearing. Her clothes, a spectacularly iridescent set of a tight-fitting tunic and equally tight trousers that both looked to be made of fish skin, complete with a little cap and a set of goggles pushed up on her forehead, made it obvious that she had to be a messenger. The surrounding crowd had been too loud for Judy to hear how Nick's conversation with the shrew started, but when he had hunkered down and delicately offered her a single finger to shake she had instead enthusiastically thrown herself at it and squeezed it into a hug, her long muzzle going almost past the next finger. Clearly someone he knew, then, but Judy was at a complete loss for why Nick would want or need a messenger, and her confusion only grew once she had crept close enough to hear what they were saying.

"—doing well," Nick finished, and the little shrew laughed in a voice that was just as shrill and high-pitched as Judy had expected.

"Whattabout you? Whattaya doin' in Phoenix?" she asked, waving one delicate little paw dismissively, and although Judy couldn't be sure since she was watching from next to a fruit seller some ten feet away she thought the little shrew had painted her minuscule nails a vivid blue.

Judy couldn't quite place the shrew's accent, which was rather strong, but she pushed the thought aside to focus on Nick's response.

"Oh, keeping busy," Nick said, "Hoping to kill two birds with one stone—no offense to Tonaltzintli, of course."

He delicately rubbed the eagle's head, and the bird leaned into it, curling its neck affectionately against Nick's arm. The shrew giggled. "None taken. He likes ya, ya know," she said.

Nick glanced down briefly at the eagle's wicked beak, which was in Judy's mind getting dangerously close to the soft skin of his belly, and smiled. "I have that effect, I'm told," he said.

"Daddy liked ya too," the shrew replied, and Judy got the sense that she was carefully gauging Nick for how he would respond.

Nick sighed. "Could things have gone better?" he said, "Yes, yes they could. But—"

"I know what he asked ya for," the shrew interrupted, so quietly Judy almost couldn't make it out, "Could ya do it, Nicky?"

"Why don't you tell me?" Nick asked, flashing her a brilliant smile, and he pulled something out of a pocket that was so small and so dark that at first Judy couldn't see it against the fur of Nick's paw.

Even once it caught the light right, it didn't look to be all that remarkable; it was a minuscule bag of dark cloth. When he delicately gave it to the shrew, though, she handled it as though it was the most precious treasure that any mammal had ever crafted. She peeked inside, and while Judy couldn't see the contents herself and couldn't be entirely sure, she thought that whatever Nick had given the shrew glowed with its own light. "Oh, Nicky!" the shrew said, and her little eyes were glistening with tears, "Ya really did it! Praise the gods, ya did it!"

She threw herself at his paw again, wrapping her tiny arms around one finger, and her little body was wracked with sobs. Nick coughed; Judy had expected him to bask in the shrew's praise, but he almost seemed embarrassed by the attention. The shrew choked out her thanks between what could only be tears of joy, and Judy found herself more than a little uncomfortable watching the scene. Still, she couldn't help but wonder what Nick had given the shrew and how they knew each other. Judy supposed the bag could have contained minuscule coins; she had learned in the academy that some criminals favored the money minted for the use of Zootopia's smallest citizens because it made it easier to transport quantities worth large sums. The bag hadn't looked like it had been filled enough to contain a fortune, though, but Judy wasn't sure what could have been in it that Nick could have made. And what had the shrew and Nick meant about her father? Could—"Hey, rabbit!" a voice interrupted her thoughts, and Judy almost leaped in surprise as she whirled around.

The mammal addressing her was the marmot running the fruit stand she had hidden behind, and a scowl darkened his features. "You gonna buy anything or not, huh? You can't loiter 'round here, you know," he said, and his voice seemed to rise in both pitch and volume as he jabbed one stubby little finger in her direction.

Judy, trying not to call any more attention to herself, quickly apologized and hastily pulled a pawful of coins out. She wasn't quite sure what she said; she might have said that all the fruit looked so good she had needed some time to decide, and by the time she slapped down the coins in exchange for an assortment of fruit that actually looked quite tasty the marmot's annoyance had given way to a self-satisfied manner. The entire exchange couldn't have taken more than a couple minutes, but when she turned back around her heart sank. Just as she had feared, the shrew and the eagle—and Nick—were gone.

* * *

 

**Author's Notes:**

I figure that Judy's near total ignorance of how torcs work is pretty realistic; although most people can use cars, computers, and phones I think most people would be at a total loss to explain even the basics of how they actually function, let alone the specific details. I figure that, in a world of magic, there's no reason it'd be any different.

A tinker was a real, although currently essentially obsolete, profession for people who repaired houseware. It's also the origin of the word "tinkering" to mean to adjust something.

Universal literacy is a fairly modern development, explaining why someone can support themselves simply writing letters; in a time before everyone could do so for themselves, simply being able to read and write was an incredibly useful skill.

Golden eagles are popularly linked to the sport of falconry, and are commonly regarded as extremely effective, albeit difficult to handle, hunters. The golden eagle is also the bird depicted on Mexico's flag, a reference to a legend that the Aztec people would know where to build a city when they saw an eagle eating a rattlesnake over a lake. Legend has it that present-day Mexico City, built on the same site as Tenochtitlan, is this city. This legend may be a result of misinterpretation of Aztec codices; as has been previously mentioned in my author's notes a lot of information about the Aztecs was lost during the Spanish conquest.

Golden eagles can be pretty large, with wingspans of up to 7 feet 8 inches (2.34 meters), and carrying a shrew would be absolutely no problem for one; golden eagles typically prey on hares, rabbits, and similarly sized mammals, but have been known to go after prey as large as deer.

Tonaltzintli is the Nahuatl word for sun, which seemed an appropriate name for a golden eagle. I imagine birds in this series might be somewhat more domesticated than they are in real life, considering that they would pose a much greater risk to citizens of Zootopia than they would to humans, but would conversely also be possible to ride.

As previously discussed, coins in this setting are a fiat currency rather than having their value tied to the amount of precious metal in them, so it doesn't seem unreasonable for criminals to favor the smallest possible coins for moving large sums. Depending on how money works in the movie, perhaps something similar is done; I can't imagine mice using the same size paper money Judy uses to pay for Nick's pawpsicle.

As always, thanks for reading! I'd love to know what you thought, if you're so inclined to leave a comment.


	18. Chapter 18

Bogo squeezed one thick finger in the narrow gap between his torc and his neck and grimaced, watching his reflection in the mirror do the same. The platinum torc he was wearing, a symbol of his new-found position as a member of the high nobility, just didn't seem to fit as comfortably as his old golden one. Maybe it was that it was lighter; after so many years with his old torc's familiar weight around his neck it didn't feel right to be so unburdened. Even his old gold and obsidian rank insignias, with their constellations of five stars that marked him as a captain general, were gone, replaced with identical insignia of platinum and ruby. Bogo didn't know how long he would wear the new insignias before even those were gone; how long he had to train his replacement was entirely at the queen's discretion. What he would keep, even after his retirement, was the change to his torc that made him the most uncomfortable; for the first time in his life he had a sigil, marking the new noble house the queen had created for him.

Bogo grunted as he pulled his finger away from his neck, doing his best to ignore the new ornament, a platinum disc engraved with a blocky image of a buffalo's head with opalescent inserts for the eyes and horns. Perhaps it was supposed to be him, but he certainly didn't see the resemblance; he'd have to ask his wife what she thought. What Maria would think of the story he would tell, from the attempts on the princess's life to his forced retirement and elevation to nobility, was something he couldn't even guess at. It would, however, likely be a few hours before he had the opportunity to find out, considering the task before him, and Bogo set his thoughts of his wife aside.

He took one last glance in the mirror and pulled down on his uniform top—that, at least, was the same as it had ever been—to smooth it before turning away to leave the palace's infirmary. He still had a bit of an ache in his head, somewhere behind his eyes, but the alchemy-infused bandages had been removed and the lump on his head from Jamie's attack was almost entirely gone. Bogo had dozed off again after the queen had left him, and the hour or so extra that he had slept still hadn't been enough to refresh him. It had been an extremely long day, and Bogo once again had to push aside thoughts of Maria—as the unfamiliar sigil jostled against his throat he had wondered again what she would think—as he set off once again for Oztoyehuatl's Jail. The soldiers who had brought in the pair of blood magicians he was determined to question had been possessed of enough foresight, at least, to know not to bring them directly to the palace. Jorge de Cuvier and Jamie had both shown just how dangerous a quauhxicalli user could be, and the thought made Bogo come to a stop as he approached the grand exit of the palace.

Jamie had been in the custody of Cencerro's personal soldiers when he had made his escape. Both of the sheep had been killed, but was it really such a stretch to imagine that Cencerro would sacrifice two of her own mammals? If she had deliberately planned to release Jamie, though, what had her plan been? Had it really been as simple as making another attempt at killing the princess, or had there been another goal? She could have been ensuring that no one would be able to question Jamie, but if that had been the case it would have been far better to have him die in custody. As things stood, all it did was call Cencerro's loyalties into question. It was always possible, though, that someone else was simply trying to throw suspicion upon Cencerro.

Bogo repressed a sigh, and realized that the two guards on either side of the door had been waiting, with no small amount of awkward fidgeting, for him to either make it clear he intended on going through the door or to turn and go down one of the hallways that led off the enormous entrance hall. He strode forward as purposefully as he could, and the relief in the guards' eyes was palpable as they snapped crisply into action and opened the doors for him. Bogo knew he would have to be more careful; it wasn't just the citizens of Zootopia who needed to see a strong front from their leadership. The City Guard, for however much longer they were his to command, deserved nothing less than his best effort, and Bogo nodded at the guards as he passed them.

From the main entrance, it was a short walk to a carriage waiting for him, and in a matter of minutes he was on his way to the jail. Although the ride was relatively short, Bogo had not left the palace unprepared; in addition to leaving him his new torc, the queen had also saw fit to have the latest reports taken from his office and dropped off in the infirmary. There still hadn't been any word back from Phoenix, which was to be expected, but the mammals of the City Guard had successfully found and brought in the weasel and the bear that Alfonso had named as possible candidates for creating the quauhxicalli that Jorge de Cuvier—and, Bogo supposed, Jamie—had used.

What had been added to the files for the two blood magicians wasn't of much interest; Bogo's eyes slid quickly over and past the information, not seeing anything that jumped out at him compared to what the first hasty reports had described. Of far more interest to him was the report that had been written by the court's own blood magician. Unlike the court's alchemist, who seemed to delight in attending every possible court function he could, the court's blood magician tended to keep to herself. Considering the headaches Tomas had caused him, Bogo didn't mind Rosa's less social attitude at all, and it wasn't as though the royal family had many occasions to call on her services. Still, it was a morbid sort of coincidence that Rosa was a cheetah and her report—once Bogo had plowed his way through the dense technical parts he didn't understand—agreed with Alfonso's assessment. The quauhxicalli Cuvier used had, in Rosa's opinion, been created from the life of a cheetah, and the three pages of dense justifications for how she had reached that conclusion were entirely beside the point.

For the first time since he had boarded the carriage, Bogo looked up and out one of the windows at the city. He had passed the grand estates of the oldest and most powerful nobles a while back, and the street the carriage was rattling down was a perfect example of Zootopia's upper middle class. The most prosperous merchants and the highest-paid professionals lived in houses and apartments that approached, but never dared to match or exceed, the grandeur of what the nobles lived in. They were, to Bogo's eye, gaudy monstrosities more concerned with showing off how wealthy the inhabitants were rather than anything else; there was no other way to explain the eyesore of a giant stepped pyramid, so completely covered in elaborately engraved silver that it burned red in the rising sun, that was considered the most exclusive apartment building in all of the Inner Baronies for anyone without a noble title. It was one of the safest parts of Zootopia; even crimes like pick-pocketing were incredibly rare, and if a cheetah had gone missing from one of the lofty buildings the City Guard would have known right away.

There were other neighborhoods, though, where the City Guard would never be contacted about a missing mammal. Neighborhoods where there were some mammals—not many, but some—who had managed to make it to adulthood without ever getting a torc. Neighborhoods like the one Bogo had grown up in. He realized he had been touching his torc, and the cold reality of the smooth platinum made his youth seem almost impossible, like a bad dream, and he relaxed his grip. Rosa's report had theorized that the cheetah used to make the quauhxicalli had come from Phoenix, but it occurred to Bogo that it wasn't the only option. There were some neighborhoods, near the border between the Inner Baronies and the Middle Baronies where the buildings and the Wall blotted out the sky, where a young cheetah might slip through the cracks of the being assigned a torc as a cub. It was a crime not to have one, of course, but the city was too large to enforce it on every single mammal, and if a blood magician needed a sacrifice a mammal no one would miss it seemed the perfect choice.

Bogo's frown turned thoughtful as he considered the idea. In contrast to the dense jargon that made up most of Rosa's report, she had been rather straightforward on one point. In her mind, it had taken an extremely skilled blood magician to make the quauhxicalli, and she had claimed that it would take her at least a week if she had been the one to manufacture it. She had, however, conceded the possibility that the blood magician who had actually done so might have been able to do so more quickly. Bogo thought that he would have to make a point of talking to Rosa when he got back to the palace; in that little self-contained world it was incredibly rare for someone to so blandly suggest that they could be responsible for even a trivial misdeed, let alone a monstrous crime. He doubted that Rosa would have any reason to actually help either Jorge de Cuvier or Jamie, but Jamie had proven that his judgement wasn't perfect.

Bogo had just finished writing himself a note to have the City Guard prod more deeply into Rosa's affairs than they already had when the carriage came to a stop in front of Oztoyehuatl's Jail. It looked much the same as it had on his last visit, or on any of his previous ones; Bogo had long since lost count of how many times he had visited the jail. The security was as good as ever, and soon Bogo found himself in front of the first suspect he wanted to talk to.

The weasel's cell didn't have quite the same setup as Alfonso's, as the weasel was much larger, but it was close enough. The walls were thick and made of diamond, the only openings far too small for the prisoner to get so much as a claw through, let alone his entire body. Outside the ring of the alchemical array that prevented the use of alchemy within the cell more than a dozen alchemical torches blazed, completely banishing any shadows and throwing the pitiful prisoner into sharp focus.

The weasel, sitting on a cot at the center of the cell, still wore obnoxious finery of the sort that made him look like he was clumsily imitating a noble, but his torc had been replaced with one of lead that marked him as a prisoner. This, Bogo couldn't help but note, seemed particularly concerning to the weasel; he jerked one paw away from it as Bogo entered and turned to look at him. The weasel was long and lean, with brown fur that stuck out in all directions, and his eyes were large and fearful as he took Bogo in.

In response, Bogo simply folded his arms across his chest and silently took stock of the prisoner through the diamond wall that separated them. One of the advantages of his size was that it took very little effort to be intimidating; as he knew would happen the weasel was the first to talk. "How can I help the City Guard?" the weasel asked at last in a voice that was more of a whine, and then after his eyes flickered to Bogo's neck, he hastily stood, bowed, and added, "Milord?"

Bogo had to resist grimacing at the use of the title; he wasn't sure he would ever get used to mammals calling him "lord" but he couldn't resist the opportunity the weasel had given him. Immediately before going to the weasel's cell, Bogo had stopped at the guard station long enough to grab the torc the weasel had been wearing when he had been brought in. The torc was made out of bronze but was so covered in platinum beads that almost none of the metal was visible, and Bogo wordlessly held it out and dropped it. Once the jangling thud of the torc hitting the cold stones outside the cell had faded into a silence that had to be increasingly uncomfortable for the weasel, Bogo leaned forward slightly and spoke. "I hear you're a lord too. Duke, was it?" he said.

The weasel's laugh was satisfyingly nervous, and Bogo couldn't help but notice his eyes darting about the room looking for an exit that didn't exist. "Just a little nickname, milord. I'm the Duke of Quauhxicallis, you see, that's what customers call me, but your lordship can call me—"

"I know your name," Bogo interrupted, "I know a lot about you, Wilfrido. You've had run ins with the City Guard before."

Wilfrido chuckled, and the nervous edge to his laughter was more pronounced. "Those were all misunderstandings, milord," he said, spreading his arms out and favoring Bogo with a smile that revealed a number of teeth gaudily set with gems, "My quauhxicallis are of the finest quality."

"You've been arrested before for quauhxicallis that didn't match their labels," Bogo replied, doing his best to sound bored and uninterested as he opened the file he had on Wilfrido and flipped through it, "Nearly a year in jail for that. We can add more time, of course."

It was all for show, of course—without his glasses on, the text was too small for him to read at arm's length—but it had the desired effect. Wilfrido seemed to blanch beneath his fur, his pupils constricting to pinpricks. "That was—" Wilfrido began, his voice suddenly shrill and trembling; when he started over he sounded somewhat more normal.

"My old business partner was a crook, milord, I won't deny that," he said, "But I had no idea he was doing it, I swear by all the gods. I'm honest and straight as an arrow now. If you can't take  _my_  word, ask my guild representative. I've been in good standing for years now."

Wilfrido was gesticulating a bit wildly as he spoke, hitting his narrow chest for emphasis, and his breathing was shallow and rapid. In response, Bogo simply grunted as dismissively as he could. He thought he had Wilfrido exactly where he wanted him, but he knew he'd have to be careful about how he applied pressure to him. Too little and the weasel would regain his footing, and too much and the weasel might make things up wildly in an attempt to please him. "You've got some skill with making quauhxicallis, then?" Bogo asked, and he thought the weasel's response would indicate perfectly how well he was being pressured.

Wilfrido nodded vigorously, his head bobbling as though it was about to come off. "Oh, yes, milord, yes," and for a brief instant Bogo felt a stab of disappointment, thinking he had overdone it.

However, when Wilfrido continued, Bogo had to repress a smile. "I'm not the best, of course, never did master the complicated ones, but there's something to be said for the simple ones, isn't there?" Wilfrido said, his words seeming to gain confidence as he kept speaking, "I can do those faster and cheaper than anyone else, milord."

Bogo frowned and nodded as thoughtfully as he could. He got the sense that Wilfrido was being honest—or at least, as honest as a charlatan could be—and it was time to push for what he really wanted. "So you wouldn't know how to create a quauhxicalli that would take a life to make?" Bogo asked, trying to make the question sound as bland as possible.

The effect on Wilfrido was immediate. He stumbled, nearly falling backwards over his cot. "A life?" he repeated, his voice even shriller than it had been the first time Bogo had challenged him, "No one could do that!"

"Someone did," Bogo replied evenly.

The horror on Wilfrido's face was so obvious that Bogo doubted that it could be an act. He didn't think that the weasel had the skill to make such a quauhxicalli himself, but that didn't mean that he had no involvement. Whether the cheetah that had been sacrificed had come from Phoenix or from one of the worst neighborhoods of the Inner or Middle Baronies, the blood magician who had made the sacrifice might have needed help. "Someone murdered a cheetah to make a quauhxicalli," Bogo continued, his eyes never leaving Wilfrido's, "Do you know anything about that?"

The weasel seemed to hesitate a moment. "Nothing, milord," he said at last, and Bogo pushed down his interest, keeping his face as stoic as possible.

Wilfrido was, he was almost positive, lying. He knew something, perhaps something that he hadn't realized was important until Bogo had started asking questions. Perhaps the weasel had simply overheard something; no matter what Wilfrido said about being an honest business mammal Bogo didn't buy it. "Very well," Bogo said, "If you can't help me find a blood magician who  _could_ do that, I'm afraid we'll have to hold you here until we find the culprit."

"You can't do that!" Wilfrido protested, and Bogo took a single step forward, allowing his anger and frustration with the case to bubble to the surface onto his face.

"Are you trying to tell the captain general of the City Guard what he can and cannot do?" Bogo asked, putting as much menace into his voice as possible.

Wilfrido shook his head, and Bogo felt a thin smile to cross his face. "I'll be back in ten minutes or so," Bogo said, "That should give you some time to think."

Without giving Wilfrido so much as the opportunity to react, Bogo turned around and left to visit the next suspect.

* * *

**Author's Notes:**

In the real Spanish army, the rank insignia for a captain general is five four-pointed stars arranged in a diamond, crossed by a pair of sabres, and with a crown above them. Judy's rank insignia were previously mentioned to be obsidian and gold, as were Bogo's prior to his elevation to the ranks of nobility.

A sigil is a somewhat archaic word for a seal, and I thought it made sense that a new noble house would accordingly require a symbol.

Since torcs are, naturally, something that needs to be put onto a mammal after they're born, I figured it made sense that this would be an actual law in the city, and it'd be a crime not to have one. Similarly, I think it only follows that, for some portion of the population, they would manage to avoid getting a torc.

The court blood magician has been mentioned a few times in previous chapters, but this is the first one to establish her name and species. In chapter 10, Bogo didn't have her report on Jorge de Cuvier's quauhxicalli yet, which in her opinion aligns with Alfonso's theory from chapter 8.

Wilfrido is this story's version of Duke Weaselton, and I found it a lot of fun to consider how Bogo would interrogate him given the opportunity.

As always, thanks for reading! I'd love to know what you thought if you're so inclined to leave a comment.


	19. Chapter 19

Judy wasn't sure how she had managed to find her way back to the barracks, but it didn't seem to matter. Her thoughts raced too wildly to focus on anything around her, and she couldn't remember any of the journey. It all kept coming back to that little shrew, because Judy had the awful feeling she knew exactly who Nick had been speaking to. How could she not? The arrest of the crime lord Big had happened only days before she had graduated from the academy, and it had been all anyone in her class could talk about. Captain General Bogo's introduction before giving the commencement address had mentioned his latest and greatest triumph, but he hadn't, instead speaking only on the importance of the City Guard as a whole. Judy had admired his humility, but she would have been lying if she said she hadn't imagined being in his place. What would she have done, if she had been the one clever and dedicated enough to finally capture one of the city's worst criminals? Would she have been able to capture Big's daughter Fernanda?

It had been almost an afterthought in the coverage of the story, that Big had managed to get his daughter to safety before his own arrest. Judy, however, had every word the papers had run just about burned into her memory. If Nick was trying to help the daughter of Zootopia's most notorious crime lord, why was he doing it? Did it have anything to do with the attempt on the princess's life?

Judy stared up at the ceiling above the cot in the officer's quarters, willing things to make sense. The officer's quarters were silent and deathly still, the thick stone of the walls isolating her completely from the enlisted soldiers in their cavernous shared bunk room. The silence gave the very air a sort of suffocating weight to it as Judy considered the possibilities, her thoughts consuming her. She could practically see it play out across the dull stone ceiling above her, an image of the little shrew messenger—who she desperately tried to think of being anyone but Fernanda—springing her father from jail with some kind of alchemical weapon Nick had made her before they went on to overthrow the queen. It was crazy, she told herself. Nick wasn't the sort of mammal who would do something like that, and it was ridiculous to think that she had simply stumbled upon a vast criminal conspiracy by dumb luck. It was crazy, Judy told herself again, letting out a deep breath she hadn't realized she had been holding.

Judy rolled over onto her side, the firm cot barely yielding at all, and stared at the wall, which was just as uninteresting as the ceiling. Her eyes stole to the little table she had set the sabre Nick had given her. The officer's quarters were almost too dark for her to see it, but it glittered faintly in the light coming through the one high and narrow window, and Judy remembered how he had given it up. There had to be a perfectly rational explanation for what she had seen in the market. Yes, it was true that Cencerro had held not even slightly concealed contempt for Nick. And yes, it was true that Nick had told her basically nothing about his past or how he came to be an alchemist. And most of all, it was undeniable that Nick had given  _something_  to a shrew who perfectly matched the description of Big's daughter. There had to be a reasonable explanation, one in which Nick wasn't some criminal mastermind.

And yet, as she rolled over onto her back again, Judy just couldn't see it.

* * *

"What's got your ears down, Carrots?" Nick asked, "Did Cencerro make you scrub the floors with a toothbrush?"

Judy tried, and almost certainly failed, to look more cheerful, and she smiled weakly at his little joke. Nick certainly looked to be in a better mood than she was; he had the same self-satisfied expression as ever, and he had dressed himself much more dramatically than he had at any point on their trip together. His bottle-green coat had been replaced by a set of robes in a slightly different shade of green, with arcane symbols embroidered on it in gold. If it weren't for his species, and the lack of an ouroboros symbol on his torc, he really would look exactly the part for an alchemist in a way he never had before. Nick had in fact set up a booth in the market, exactly as promised, although his was far less gaudy than the one for the other alchemist Judy had seen the previous day. Instead of an elaborate castle-like tent of gold, Nick simply had a block of a stone table engraved with a single word—ALCHEMIST—and absolutely nothing on top of it. It was at first glance completely unimpressive, but on closer inspection it was the most perfect table Judy had ever seen, all of its sides completely level and unblemished and its corners looking as sharp as razors. Even if Judy hadn't traveled with Nick it would have been obvious that he completely lacked the strength to transport such a thing, and she supposed that he must have created it from the ground of the market square.

The reminder of his skill with alchemy brought up, unbidden, the memory of the glowing contents of the little bag he had given Fernanda.  _No_ , Judy told herself firmly,  _the shrew._  Until she was positive that Nick was guilty of a crime, it was her sworn duty as a member of the City Guard not to act as though he was. He might even be her friend. Unless, of course, he was some kind of conspirator.

At the thought, Judy looked at Nick more closely, but he appeared completely guileless. He certainly didn't look like he was laboring under the burden of being a key player in some kind of scheme to topple the monarchy or bring a crime lord back to power. He was just a fox— _Oztoyehuatl had been_ just _a fox_  a voice that sounded a lot like her father's murmured in the back of her head—tall and slender for his species, a mildly concerned expression beginning to cloud his face. Judy realized she had taken far too long to respond to his little joke and hastily waved one dismissive paw, nearly losing her grip on her spear as she did so. She had decided, before leaving the barracks without so much as a word to anyone else, lest of all Cencerro, that she would come to the market in her full City Guard uniform with all her equipment. Just in case.

"No, no, nothing like that!" Judy said, and her voice sounded unnaturally high and hearty to her ears, "I just—I didn't sleep well."

It was, after all, the truth; Judy didn't think she had gotten more than an hour's sleep the entire night. "Ah," Nick said, nodding sympathetically, "It can be hard, sleeping someplace new."

Nick was making it incredibly difficult for Judy to suspect him of some kind of treachery. As he had been on the road, he was friendly and cheerful, but if he was conspiring to help a criminal attack the royal family—whether for revenge or power or any of the other dozens of awful possibilities she had thought up—wasn't that exactly what he would want his escort to think? But that was just thinking that he was suspicious because he  _wasn't_ acting suspicious, and if she went down that path where would it end?

Judy tightened her grip on her spear, willing herself to stay calm. She just had to give Nick a fair chance, that was all. She just needed to figure out if he really was a criminal and then she could put the whole nightmare her first official assignment had become behind her. "You're certainly here early," Nick continued, and if he had any inkling of her inner turmoil he certainly didn't show it, "Just in time to watch me put the finishing touches on my booth."

Nick hummed slightly to himself as he unrolled a piece of cloth with a complicated pattern of circles and triangles that made the one he had wrapped the sabre in look simple and set his alchemical focuses at intersection points. He was just about to touch his paws to either side of the cloth atop the smooth stone of his table when Judy spoke almost without realizing it. "Have you been doing this long?" she asked, and Nick looked up at her, one eyebrow raised.

"Setting up an alchemy booth? Oh, I've been at it for a while," Nick said, rolling one paw in a vague gesture.

"Even though Phoenix already has an alchemist?" Judy pressed, and Nick chuckled.

"You've heard of Master Rogelio, then. Some of us don't need fancy booths to get customers," Nick said, and he seemed to be pointedly directing his words over her shoulder.

Judy spun in place and saw the same squirrel apprentice she had seen the previous night, his cheeks puffed out with exertion as he pushed a cart significantly larger than he was and piled high with what looked like sheets of gold foil so fine that they'd be invisible if seen edge-on. Next to him, and making absolutely no effort to help, was the single gaudiest mammal Judy had ever seen.

The porcupine, who Judy assumed to be Master Rogelio, put those few alchemists she had seen in the heart of Zootopia to shame; not only were his blue robes so heavily embroidered with gold thread that almost no blue was visible, but all of his quills had been gilded. His gold-covered quills gleamed brilliantly in the light of the rising sun, revealing that most of them were delicately engraved with words and symbols Judy couldn't understand, but the quills closest to the top of his head were even more elaborately decorated. There, the porcupine had set delicate gems, no bigger than grains of sand, that glowed with their own internal light. At his neck, the porcupine wore what would have been the single largest torc decoration Judy had ever seen if she had never seen an elephant; it was a monstrous ouroboros symbol that looked larger than some actual snakes. The level of detail and the gems set into it made the ouroboros his apprentice wore appear almost understated, and when the porcupine scowled at Nick Judy was half-surprised that his teeth weren't similarly encrusted with jewels.

The porcupine certainly seemed to have a face made for scowling, a well-worn crease crossing his forehead as he drew himself up to his full height. "I thought you would have given up by now," he said, and his voice held the poshest accent Judy had ever heard, so much so that it almost sounded like a parody of a noble.

He did not, Judy noticed, have the platinum torc that would have marked him as a member of society's upper echelon, and Nick didn't seem to respect him like one. "Oh, unless your proposal goes through, there's plenty of room in the market for the both of us. Wouldn't you agree, Master Rogelio?"

Nick's words sounded perfectly sincere, and yet somehow completely lacked respect; perhaps it was because Nick had casually leaned over his table and spread his paws wide to take in the market. It was true that there was plenty of room, as it seemed as though most mammals hadn't begun setting up yet; there were perhaps one or two dozen booths, scattered around like a pawful of grain on a windy day, that only emphasized how large the square was by how empty it was. A few mammals were beginning to mill about, but none were paying them any mind.

Rogelio's scowl somehow managed to intensify. "Your days of selling trinkets and novelties are numbered, fox," he said, "Mark my words, you will regret the day you ever thought to profane the art of alchemy with your filthy—"

"Excuse me, sir," Judy interrupted, as sweetly as she could, "Are you making a threat? You could be arrested for that."

Whether or not Nick was a criminal, her conscience simply wouldn't let her stand aside as a civilian tried bullying him. Rogelio's attention turned to her, as though he was noticing her for the first time, and his lips thinned as he looked her up and down. "You must not be from Phoenix, ensign," he said at last, and he pointed at Nick with one finger, revealing a rather thick and ugly ring, "But you still ought to know better than to... linger around a fox."

The words stung more than they should have. It certainly wasn't just because Nick was a fox that she was beginning to be suspicious of him; even if he had been another bunny she was sure she would have been just as diligent in doing her job. "The City Guard has a duty to look into suspicious mammals," Nick said, and Judy's heart began to speed up.

He had spoken the words blandly enough, but did he know that she was trying to prod more deeply into his motives? Or was it just a coincidence of him needling his fellow alchemist? "Take care then, Nicholas," Rogelio said, and he turned to Judy again, "Certainly, ensign, it was not my intent for my words to be misconstrued."

"They've been clear as glass," Nick said cheerfully, "You have a good day now. You too, Santiago."

Santiago, the squirrel apprentice, had been silent the entire time, but considering the cart he had been pushing that might have been exhaustion as much as it was respect for his master; he had spent the entire conversation puffing and wheezing as he caught his breath. Judy felt as though the squirrel almost said something in response, but at a quick look from his master he simply gave a grunt of effort as he pushed the heavy cart back into motion.

"What was that about?" Judy asked, and Nick's only response at first was a shrug.

When she fixed him with a level stare, however, Nick sighed. "It's all politics," he said, "I try to stay out of it, you know."

Again, Judy couldn't help but wonder if his words had some deeper meaning. Was he mocking her, thinking she wasn't aware of his scheme? "See, some mammals—puffed up members of the Alchemist Guild like Master Rogelio there, mostly—want to make it illegal to practice alchemy without being in the guild," Nick said.

"Why?" Judy asked, and despite herself she was interested in the answer although it didn't seem likely to have much relevance to the dilemma she was facing.

"Why do you think?" Nick asked, a thin smile crossing his face, "Less competition means they can charge more. They say it's about safety and accountability and so on, of course."

"But..." Judy began, pausing to think her words out, "Why haven't they already done that? The Alchemist Guild is the most powerful—"

"Let me let you in on a little secret," Nick interrupted in a low voice, leaning forward and gesturing Judy toward him in a conspiratorial manner, "You saw Santiago there, didn't you?"

"Yes," Judy said, leaning in, although she was completely confused as to what kind of point Nick was getting at.

"What do you think his chances are of becoming a master alchemist like Rogelio?"

"They have to be pretty good, right?"

"No, no they don't," Nick said, "The nasty little secret of the Alchemist Guild is that maybe one in every ten apprentices becomes a master. Those other nine apprentices never learn the secret of making a true philosopher's stone, but that doesn't mean they can't do any alchemy. So there's a sort of agreement. Those failed apprentices do the simple work the masters can't be bothered with, and the masters do the complex work that no one else can. Mammals like Rogelio who want the whole pie don't have the sway to change things, and there's plenty of work for everyone."

"But you were never an apprentice, were you?" Judy asked suddenly.

For a moment, she would have sworn she saw a flicker of surprise on Nick's face, and she plowed forward, "You never made that agreement."

She thought she saw what might be the largest part of why Rogelio didn't like Nick; presumably a job like purifying Phoenix's wells was supposed to be something that the Alchemist Guild would have no competition for, and as such could charge whatever they wanted. With Nick involved, though, Judy supposed that even if Rogelio won the bid he wouldn't make nearly as much profit, and considering the way he dressed she guessed he didn't care for much else.

"Very clever, Ensign Carrots," Nick said approvingly, "That's right. Rogelio doesn't like that, you can be sure of it."

"How  _did_  you learn alchemy, then?" Judy asked; it was a question that seemed to be at the heart of the enigma that he was.

"Oh, you know," Nick said vaguely, "Here and there. I told you, it's a long and boring story."

"I want to hear it, though," Judy said.

"Maybe later, then," Nick said, "For now, though..."

Before Judy could even begin to protest his latest deflection, Nick set his paws on either side of the cloth still on top of his stone table and Judy felt the increasingly familiar power of alchemy. Her fur stood on end, the air suddenly sharp, and symbols began appearing on the table, so dark that they seemed like infinite voids. With a sudden flash of light, the symbols became grooves, but the light didn't end; the symbols began to glow with their own pale light. It was, Judy had to admit, a far simpler display of alchemical power than Rogelio's tent, but no less clear; even an illiterate mammal would have no trouble figuring out that the booth belonged to an alchemist.

"Well, that's all set," Nick said, rolling up his cloth as he nodded approvingly at his work, "So how about we see if we can pick up that book I want? It  _is_  a bit of a walk."

"What about your booth?" Judy asked, although it was more an attempt to buy more time to figure out what Nick was up to rather than an honest interest in what happened in the market.

Nick chuckled. "It's literally part of the ground. It's not going anywhere until I want it to."

Without any further arguments to pose, Judy reluctantly followed Nick, but just as they were leaving the market decided to go for broke. "I saw you speaking to a shrew last night," she began, keeping a careful eye on Nick's face.

* * *

**Author's Notes:**

The version of Alfonso's arrest that Judy read about doesn't really match up with how Bogo remembers it happening, but of course both the papers and Bogo have their own biases. This chapter also reveals that the one time Judy mentions having seen Bogo was at her graduation. I did, I admit, plot things out so that neither one actually personally knows the other, but have wildly different opinions. Judy respects Bogo by his reputation and what she has seen of him. Bogo only knows of Judy and most definitely does not respect her.

I think it also says something about each character that Bogo consistently refers to the crime lord by his actual name, Alfonso, while Judy knows him by one of his chosen names, Big.

Master Rogelio's rather tacky sense of style was, I thought, rather appropriate considering how he sets up his booth with what's essentially a golden castle. His clothes are at least as richly embroidered as what the court alchemist, Tomas, is described to wear, and I thought quill gilding worked as something both fashion-conscious and practical. I would imagine that life for porcupines in the world of Zootopia has to be somewhat difficult, what with the risk of accidentally stabbing someone with your quills. In this particular setting, that's an even worse risk, since in most of the city-state your torc is going to give you an injury identical to that of your victim. Coating quills with metal could also serve to give them a blunt end without having to cut off the barbs. Whether that looks better or worse is, of course, entirely a matter of personal taste, but Rogelio's tastes seem pretty clear.

This chapter fleshes out the organization of the Alchemist Guild a bit more, and I figure that this also helps explain why complete philosopher's stones are so rare and expensive in this setting. The number of master alchemists is very low, and thus their services are expensive.

Nick previously claimed, in chapter 3, that the story of how he learned alchemy is long and boring, and he makes the same claim in this chapter. Whether or not you believe that is, I suppose, entirely up to you.

As always, thanks for reading! I'd love to know what you thought if you're so inclined as to leave a comment.


	20. Chapter 20

Blanca of the Cetl Barony had been nicknamed Osita at some point in her life, but the days when the name was ironic were long gone. The polar bear was thin for her species, almost unhealthily so; her skin seemed to hang loosely on her frame under its rough coating of matted white fur speckled with green algae. She wore a plain but dirty dress of cotton that might have been blue at some point, the color nearly worn entirely out of it. Blanca's eyes were red-rimmed and fever-bright, and she glared at Bogo with silent contempt as he approached her cell.

When he was standing right in front of the thick wall of diamond that separated them, she pushed herself to her feet off of her cot. She was almost as tall as Bogo was, and although Bogo easily had her outweighed by several hundred pounds and was on the right side of the cell walls she showed no sign of being afraid or intimidated. "I don't speak to _prey_ ," she said, her voice coarse and low, and then she spat on the wall that separated them.

Bogo watched the spittle drip down the perfectly smooth wall of diamond silently. When he had been younger and less experienced, he might have given into the urge to come back with a smart remark—"You just did," perhaps—but it took no effort to let the opportunity pass and simply look down into her eyes.

Even though Bogo had never met the sickly-looking polar bear in his life, he knew her kind. He was sure that there would always be those predators dreaming of the glory days, over long before their great-grandparents had been born, when prey had been slaves to the predator ruling class. The last arrest Bogo had made while walking the city beat had been a spectacularly drunk cougar who, upon being arrested, had claimed to be a direct descendant of one of the old ruling families and had ordered Bogo to remove his "filthy hooves." That self-declared lord had spent the night sobering up in a cell, and had it not been Bogo's last action as an officer on the beat he doubted it would have stuck in his head.

Bogo had read the file on Blanca and thought he knew everything he needed to know about her; predators who thought like her were almost boringly the same when you really looked at them. In earlier years she had almost certainly helped write treasonous pamphlets, calling for the queen's abdication and for the prince consort to take the throne, but she had been at least smart enough to avoid anyone positively linking her to it. Not that it mattered much, in the grand scheme of things; Bogo and both of his immediate predecessors had more important things to take care of than a small number of discontents.

The birth of the princess had, almost certainly, brought Blanca to rage against such a hybrid. The princess had, in fact, fractured those calling for predator supremacy between those who thought she was a step forward for their cause and those who thought any amount of prey blood in a predator was too much. Blanca, it seemed, had been one of the latter, and if the rhetoric Bogo strongly suspected Blanca of writing had grown ever stronger and more absurd—her latest proposal, it seemed, was for the complete dissolution of the monarchy and its replacement with a council of noble predators to be chosen from those who participated in her cause—her own fortune seemed to have almost completely waned. If, that was, the wretched and pathetic example of a bear that glared angrily at him was any indication; he certainly doubted that her business was doing very well any more.

Although the torc Blanca had been wearing had been replaced with a plain prisoner's band of lead, Bogo had seen it when he had picked up Wilfrido's gaudily decorated one, and her guild symbol was pitted and corroded with age, the torc it was on scratched and smudged with greasy fingerprints. Altogether, the impression of Blanca that Bogo got was of a mammal who had descended into her own bitterness and impossible political dreams so deeply that she had just about lost her own ability to take care of herself. Prey outnumbered predators ten to one, after all, and while there were plenty of businesses that survived and thrived dealing only with predators it didn't appear as though Blanca's was one of them.

The silent moment after Blanca had spit must have dragged out into an eternity for her, because despite her vow she spoke again. Mammals like her always did, no matter what they promised, and it took much more effort for Bogo to resist a small smile at her crumbling than it had for him to stay silent himself. "You have no right to hold me here," she said, and Bogo thought he heard her voice crack a little, "No right!"

She was starting to panic, then. Starting to realize that, unlike all of her previous encounters with the City Guard, she had misplayed it. Whatever charm Blanca had once held—or, Bogo admitted to himself, whatever luck she might have held when it came to the officers who questioned her—was as wasted away as she herself was. Bogo considered her more carefully, watching as her breathing became more rapid and she nervously licked at her cracked lips, revealing a mouthful of yellowed teeth. He could certainly believe that Blanca would have a reason to try murdering the princess, and perhaps even the technical skill with making quauhxicallis with which to do so. What he was less sure of, however, was if she would have the ability to recruit other mammals to her cause anymore, particularly a llama. Could she have successfully put aside her hatred of prey to use one as her pawn? Perhaps. Or perhaps Jaime had been responsible for drawing Jorge de Cuvier in; he had always been remarkably charismatic. Perhaps Blanca had been _Jaime's_ pawn.

Bogo was silent a moment longer, waiting for Blanca's panic to hit just the right point, before he spoke. "I have the queen's approval to do anything it takes to solve a mystery. _Anything_ ," he said, and he did his best to fill the last word with every dire implication he possibly could.

At the mention of the queen, Blanca's face distorted in disgust, but only briefly, before it crumpled into anxiety again. The polar bear seemed to be laboring under the impression that she could hide her feelings from him, but he felt as though he could see right through her. Anti-royal statements, she seemed to be realizing, were no longer a game that the City Guard mostly ignored when they weren't breaking up printing presses. Bogo could feel his deathly seriousness radiating off like the light from a blindingly bright alchemical torch, and unless Blanca was much stupider than she looked she looked she would not underestimate him despite her obvious contempt for prey.

"I didn't do anything," she whined, her tone eerily similar to Wilfrido's just minutes earlier.

"I haven't accused you of anything," Bogo said mildly, "Not yet, at least."

"Well—" Blanca began, and then swallowed hard before continuing, "I'm not a criminal."

Her eyes darted from Bogo's face to the impenetrable walls of diamond that made up her cell; she was trapped and knew it. "You've come close to being arrested before," Bogo said, looking down at her file in the same little bit of theater he had used on the weasel, "Nothing that stuck, it seems. Do you know why that would be?"

"Because—Because I'm not a criminal!" Blanca said, and Bogo shook his head slowly.

"That's not true," he said, "You had friends in the City Guard. Or perhaps in lower places."

It was more Bogo's intuition than any solid fact that suggested the conclusion to him, but it did fit what he knew. Blanca was far too small-time an agitator for her file to have ever crossed his desk before; his generals only bothered him with credible threats to the royal family. But the pattern her file suggested, one of coming away clean despite being in the wrong place at the wrong time with a frequency that would be unlikely for an innocent mammal, suggested she had some kind of connection. Perhaps one in the City Guard; perhaps even to Jaime himself. Or, considering that she was a polar bear, perhaps to Alfonso. The little shrew had seemed to have something of a fondness for using polar bears and it didn't seem impossible for Blanca to be a cousin or an in-law to one of Alfonso's lieutenants. Alfonso had been nothing if not practical, and a skilled blood magician would be exactly the sort of mammal he'd want to have owing him a favor.

Blanca had obviously fallen on hard times, perhaps as recently as a month ago or perhaps as long as five or six. Had she lost the favor of the protector she had relied on? Perhaps. Or perhaps she had been forced into a very desperate position by someone in need of a very difficult to manufacture quauhxicalli. Desperation could make a mammal do things that they normally wouldn't, after all. Bogo was patient enough to wait, and when Blanca's answer came at last, it was in a low mumble that he could barely hear.

"General del Bosque."

Although Bogo couldn't name all of his captains any more than he could name all of the stars in the sky, he did know each and every one of his generals. General del Bosque had been, as he recalled, an old wolf—nearly ninety, if he was remembering correctly—whose heart had finally given out about four months previously as he slept one night. He had enjoyed his position as a general for a remarkably long time, and if he had felt slighted for being passed up for the top slot and instead having to report to Bogo—who had, at the time of his promotion to captain general, held many decades less experience—he had never shown it. The grizzled old wolf had seemed quite content to keep order in his own little sliver of Zootopia, and while he had been dreadful at writing reports he had never otherwise much stuck out in Bogo's mind.

In retrospect, however, it occurred to Bogo that del Bosque's mammals did seem to arrest somewhat fewer predators than in other parts of Zootopia. Bogo had never paid it much mind, but the idea that the wolf had been sympathetic to predators who wished to see prey brought low seemed unfortunately plausible. As far as Bogo was concerned, it was also the end of his suspicions when it came to Blanca, and when he prodded at her knowledge of the attempts on the princess's life she certainly didn't seem to know anything of value.

That did not mean that he was going to let her go; so far as he was concerned her sins had finally caught up to her, and his only thought as he left her alone in her cell was to make sure that the mammals del Bosque had filled his command structure with weren't similarly flexible in their loyalty to the queen and princess. Once he had the time, of course.

* * *

True to his word, Bogo returned to Wilfrido's cell; the weasel was sitting on his cot looking rather glassy-eyed as he entered the room, but he immediately jumped to his feet as Bogo approached him. "Have you reconsidered?" Bogo asked, doing his best to sound uninterested in the answer.

"This jail is safe, isn't it?" Wilfrido asked, and it was certainly not the question Bogo was expecting.

"No one gets in or out unless I want them to," Bogo said, and the firmness of his voice was entirely unforced.

Successful breakouts from Oztoyehuatl's Jail were so vanishingly rare that not only had one never happened in Bogo's entire career with the City Guard but he couldn't even remember hearing about one happening in the last century or so. So far as he knew, no one had ever managed to break into the prison, either, although anyone who did would quickly find themselves up against some of the City Guard's most elite soldiers.

Wilfrido nodded slowly before looking back and forth, as if verifying that the room his cell was in was as completely empty as it looked. It was; the door that led to the corridor and the guard beyond it was closed, and the stone expanse of the room was barren except for the walls of his cell, his cot, the weasel himself, and Bogo. Wilfrido pressed himself up against the thick diamond wall, his quick and shallow breathing fogging it up a little. "Two or three months ago," he said, his voice a reedy whisper, "There was a mammal coming 'round my shop. Real suspicious-like, see?"

Bogo bent down until he was level with Wilfrido's head, which took quite a bit of doing; the weasel was rather short. "Suspicious how?" he asked, pitching his voice so low that it was barely more than a rumble.

Wilfrido's eyes darted around again, his mouth opening, and then closing, and opening again as he hesitated. At last, he brought one paw up to the unruly fur atop his head and futilely tried smoothing it out. "All in a cloak. Green one, hood up. Now, I keep my shop bright, even at night, you understand? It's good for business, see, if mammals can see the goods real clear. Honest, you know? Like—"

The weasel had started rambling, but he must have caught the expression on Bogo's face because he came to a sudden stop. "Hood up," he repeated, "But it was like... Like he didn't have nothing under it. Pitch black under that hood, even in the light. Like he didn't have a _face_."

Wilfrido shivered, and Bogo considered what he was describing. A mammal in a cloak that completely swallowed his face wasn't just unsettling; it didn't seem especially possible. It was like a story that calves told to scare each other, and yet the encounter seemed to have left its mark on Wilfrido. If he was lying, Bogo couldn't guess at the reason, and so he did his best to keep his voice even. "How tall was he? Could you tell his species?"

Wilfrido shook his head so rapidly it was as though it was on a swivel. "He didn't have anything showing under that cloak, milord. He was medium-sized, I guess, maybe four or five feet. But that voice!"

The weasel shuddered again. "Like nothing living, I'll tell you that. It was awful. Like... Like..."

Wilfrido seemed to be groping for a comparison that was escaping him, before he finally came up with, "Like two stones scraping together."

"But you're sure it was a male voice?" Bogo asked, and Wilfrido barely had to consider the question before shrugging.

"Maybe not," he said, "I never want to hear it again."

Bogo couldn't stop the frown that slowly spread across his face. It was a ridiculous story; during his days of walking the streets it had not been uncommon for mammals to make up obviously false stories in an attempt to avoid punishment for their crimes. Some of those stories had held much better veneers of plausibility than Wilfrido's claim; even a cihuateteo snatching up kits sounded more likely. And yet Bogo could not ever remember seeing a mammal believe their own story as much as Wilfrido seemed to believe his. It was either genuine fear in the weasel's eyes or he had suddenly become a much better actor in the few minutes that had passed since Bogo had left him to question Blanca. "What did he want?" Bogo asked at last.

"He wanted..." Wilfrido began, and when he continued his voice was even quieter.

"He wanted a blood magician to do something. Something difficult, he says, so he wants the very best. I says, I says it's a real compliment he's coming to me and he..."

Wilfrido swallowed hard before continuing. "He just laughs, see? This awful, awful laugh, and even when his head goes back—so it's right under the lights, see?—I still can't see nothing of his face. He says he doesn't want me to do it, but he hears I know mammals. And I do, milord, it's the gods' honest truth so it is, good business to—"

The weasel caught himself rambling even before Bogo's expression could change and stopped again. "And so I asks him, what's he need done? And he says that's none of my business, if I know what's good for me, just that it has to be a blood magician who would do anything for the right price. And not just any blood magician, either, but the best I know."

Wilfrido's voice was trembling with every word, but he plunged on, seemingly unable to stop himself. "And I says it might take an awful lot of money and he doesn't say nothing. He just slides a platinum piece across my counter—but I can't see if he's got paws or hooves, he's got these funny, how you call 'em, metal gauntlets on—and then he says it's mine if I give him a name."

"A platinum piece?" Bogo repeated, and the skepticism in his voice must have been obvious because Wilfrido began nodding vigorously.

Platinum pieces were much too valuable to be in common circulation; there just wasn't very much need for such large denomination coins. Bogo had gone his entire life before becoming captain general without so much as seeing one, let alone handling one, and he had certainly never had such a coin in his possession. The palace did occasionally have the City Guard transport them, and he had seen for himself how the silvery coins glowed with their own beautiful internal light that put the shining markings on any of the lower coins to shame. "I still have it in my shop, milord," Wilfrido said, interrupting his thoughts, and Bogo could feel his frown deepen.

It was the sort of detail the weasel would have been foolish to add if he was making the story up, and for all the platinum bangles he had decorated his torc with it was difficult to imagine him being successful enough to earn the equivalent of a platinum piece. "We'll want to see it," Bogo said, "Who did you name?"

"There's a tigress, milord," Wilfrido said, "A tigress in Phoenix. Valentina, her name is. Scares me a bit, if I'm being honest."

Bogo somehow managed to keep his face a perfect mask, despite his pulse suddenly seeming to run hot through his head, even though the name was one of the ones that Alfonso had also given. There had still been nothing from Phoenix, but it was certainly seeming to be increasingly urgent to get word back from there. "And..." Wilfrido continued, "The mammal... He said I shouldn't tell nobody he had visited me, not if I knew what was good for me. And I said I wouldn't but..."

The little weasel shrugged his shoulders helplessly. "He said if I did, the Queen's Council would see to it no one ever saw me again."

With that, Wilfrido sank to his knees, tears streaming down his face, as though telling the story had sapped him of all his strength. Bogo, meanwhile, could feel his thoughts suddenly shifting direction away from learning more about Valentina. Certainly any mammal who wished to appear intimidating could claim to be empowered by a member of the Queen's Council. But what if it was actually true? Had Cerdo, Cencerro, or Corazón actually sent Wilfrido's mysterious visitor?

Bogo repressed a sigh as he stood up to his full height, ignoring the sniveling form of Wilfrido on the other side of the cell wall. His first meeting as a true equal to the other members of the Queen's Council was certainly shaping up to be an interesting one.

* * *

**Author's Notes:**

The word "cetl" is the Nahuatl word for "ice," which is why I chose it for the barony kept at freezing temperatures. "Osita" is Spanish for "little bear," a nickname that would have been ironic when Blanca was heavier in her youth. "Blanca," in addition to being a name, is Spanish for "white," suggesting her parents weren't very creative when naming her. The fur of polar bears can sometimes turn green, and the cause is indeed algae; it's most commonly seen in polar bears kept in zoos in warm climates.

There have been a few other references to how the structure of the city used to work before it was conquered, and in this chapter we see that there are mammals who wish that it was still the way it had been. I thought it would also be true to life that, even among mammals who oppose the existence of a monarchy, they aren't necessarily going to want a truly representational form of government.

Bogo's size is definitely emphasized in the movie, and with that size I figure he's got to be pretty heavy. In the real world, female polar bears top out around 650 pounds (about 295 kilograms), far short of a male buffalo (1300 pounds, or 590 kilograms). Since the two characters are almost the same height I think it helps indicate just how scrawny the bear is.

"Bosque" is Spanish for "forest," which seemed an appropriate family name for a wolf.

The cihuateteo, or "divine woman" in the Nahuatl language, was a sort of malevolent spirit that the Aztecs believed in. Their belief was that, if a woman died during childbirth, she would come back as a spirit and attempt to steal children. The Aztecs believed that childbirth was a sort of battle, analogous to what male warriors went through on the battlefield, and successfully giving birth to a child was a victory.

It's been previously established in this story that coins have glowing alchemical markings on them to demonstrate that they're genuine, and here that platinum coins actually glow themselves. In all cases it's not so much that the metal is precious—alchemy making it more or less trivial to make precious metals—but that it's a fiat currency with an agreed upon value. I drew the idea of platinum coins glowing from some of the things that have been done with high denomination coins in the real world. The Royal Canadian Mint, for example, makes coins of precious metal that have a holographic effect.

As always, thanks for reading! If you're so inclined to leave a comment, I'd love to know what you thought!


	21. Chapter 21

Judy wasn't quite sure how she had expected Nick to react. Deny it, maybe, the same way he seemed to deflect any conversation that grazed too closely to his past. Make a run for it, perhaps, as unlikely as it seemed. What she was not expecting at all, though, was what he actually said. "Why didn't you come over, then?" he asked, "I could have introduced you."

"What?"

The question tumbled past Judy's lips before she could even think about it; she felt as though she had to look incredibly foolish. "I could have introduced you," Nick repeated, somewhat more slowly, "Despite what the lieutenant colonel might have you believe, there  _are_ mammals who like me."

He certainly didn't have the look of a mammal caught in a web of lies; there was a little self-deprecating smile on his face as he spoke and if he was nervous at all Judy couldn't tell. "She's a... friend of yours?" Judy asked.

Perhaps it was because she had just spent a couple of days by his side virtually every waking hour, but the idea of Nick having friends struck her as odd in a way she couldn't quite put a finger on. It wasn't as though he was unfriendly—in her experience, it was quite the opposite—but that he always seemed guarded in a way. "You don't have to sound so surprised," Nick said, but there was not even a hint of annoyance in his voice, "Fermina's father and I go  _way_  back. Oh, the stories she could have told you..."

He chuckled breezily, shaking his head, and kept walking. Judy, however, had about felt her heart stop when he had started saying the shrew's name; she had been so  _sure_ that it would be Fernanda that she had almost heard that. If Nick noticed that Judy had stumbled a step, he didn't show it, continuing to easily move down the street. "Fermina?" Judy said, and to her own ears her voice sounded unnaturally high-pitched.

"Fermina?" she hastily repeated, and her tone sounded a bit more normal, "Are you sure that's her name?"

Nick actually came to a stop at that. The press of mammals making their way down on of Phoenix's more crowded side-streets flowed around them, and it seemed to take Nick no effort to avoid being jostled by the larger and more careless pedestrians. Judy, though, could feel mammals bumping into her, but the sensation seemed to be coming from a great distance. Her heart was pounding furiously, and she could feel it in the tips of her ears. Her mouth suddenly seemed full of something sharply metallic that had sucked all her saliva dry, and she realized that for a single moment she had been afraid that her worst, most implausibly wild possibility for Nick's involvement was right.

Nick cocked his head to the side as he looked at her. "Reasonably sure, yes," he said, "Why do you ask?"

"Well... There's..." Judy began, but she couldn't stop fumbling over her words, until they seemed at last to spill out of her far faster than she usually spoke, "Alfonso. Of the New Quimichin Barony, you know him? Not that you  _have_ to know him just because he's a criminal and you're a—That is, I mean, of course you don't know him, right?—he was arrested a few weeks ago but his daughter wasn't. Fernanda, her name is. She—she was never caught. Now someone tried killing the princess and they must have been really skilled in magic to do that, right? And  _Alfonso's_ a shrew and Fernanda's a shrew and your friend Fermina's a shrew and—and—I saw you talking to her and  _giving_ her something and  _you're_ good at magic and—"

"Are you asking me if I'm involved with Zootopia's most dangerous criminal in some kind of plot to kill the princess?" Nick interrupted.

He wasn't smiling anymore. His features seemed to have drawn up into themselves until all that was left was a politely neutral expression, like a mammal browsing a shop when they didn't know whether or not they were going to buy anything. "I— Yes," Judy said.

She could feel her ears heating up even as they began drooping. When he put it like that, it sounded completely absurd. But the worst of it was, he didn't sound angry at her. In fact, he didn't seem to be feeling anything. All the good humor had been gone from his voice as he stood, completely still, and asked his question, but there had been nothing else in his tone. "No, no I'm not," Nick said, and once more he seemed almost emotionless.

Before she could say anything, or even begin to formulate an apology, Nick clapped his paws and rubbed them together briskly, a smile suddenly lighting up his face. "Just goes to show there's no reason a bunny can't be just like every other member of the City Guard," he said, with a cheerfulness that Judy found surprising, "You've got a job to do, after all. Speaking of which, why don't we get this little errand over with so you can be back on your merry way?"

With that he set off walking again, more briskly than he had before. Even as she struggled to keep up with him, pushing through the crowd with far less ease, Judy couldn't help but be awe-struck by the view; they were very close to one of the great fissures that isolated Phoenix. There was only a high railing, made of sparkling multifaceted beams of diamonds that burst with color as they refracted the light of the rising sun, to separate them from a plunge into an abyss. Considering how she had just embarrassed herself by jumping to an apparently unfounded conclusion, the idea of being swallowed by such an abyss held some appeal, but Judy looked away to Nick's rapidly retreating back.

"Nick!" Judy called, rushing to catch up, "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have spied on—"

Nick cut her off again, waving one arm absently. "I can tell you all about Fermina, if you'd like," he said mildly, although he didn't turn to look back at her.

"Being an alchemist is a useful skill, but not everyone's willing to hire a fox," he continued with hardly a pause, and Judy wasn't sure if she was imagining the emphasis he seemed to place on the last word, "Fermina's father, as a business mammal, recognized the opportunity for the both of us and I was able to help him from time to time."

For the first time since he had started speaking again, Nick glanced at Judy; a wry smile twisted his lips. "Nothing exciting, I'm afraid," he added, "Mostly just odds and ends that members of the Alchemist Guild overcharge for. Anyway, it was always Fermina's dream to become a messenger, but that's not an easy job or a safe one. I've heard of riders that get eaten by their mounts, you know."

Nick was speaking smoothly, just as he had on many occasions when they had been on the road together, and yet there was something different about it that Judy wasn't sure she could describe. Nick certainly didn't seem particularly upset that she had all but directly accused him of high treason, and yet things didn't feel the same. Maybe it had only been because, while they had been traveling, she had genuinely enjoyed his company and had thought he felt the same way. Now, it seemed as though he was in a hurry to be rid of her, even if he wouldn't say it. "Not that Tonaltzintli would eat her, of course. She has him too well trained for that, and even if he tried I expect she'd just cut her way out."

Nick chuckled at his own wit, and Judy was once more overcome with a sense of how close and yet so different his behavior was from what she had come to expect of him. If it hadn't been for the fact that he wasn't looking at her as he spoke, it might have almost felt normal. "Now, Fermina ran a few deliveries for her father's business, but on her last trip to Phoenix she and Tonaltzintli got attacked by a wild hawk. She was fine, but he was hurt pretty badly and was in no shape to fly back. Her father couldn't get his paws on a complete philosopher's stone—there aren't many mammals who can, really—and I can't exactly make one myself, but I could do the next best thing and bring it here."

"You brought her an incomplete stone," Judy said, her voice barely above a whisper, and her insides seemed to twist themselves into knots.

"Clever bunny," Nick replied with a nod.

Not only had she spied on a mammal who had been closer to being a real friend than anyone she had ever known, but he hadn't been doing anything wrong. He had, in fact, been using his rare and certainly hard-earned knowledge to help out the daughter of an old business partner, even though what she had heard of their conversation made her think Fermina's father and Nick were no longer on the best of terms. He, a fox, had been behaving about as nobly as it was possible for a mammal to act. And she...

"No, I'm not. I'm sorry," Judy said, and she could feel tears welling up in her eyes, "I—"

"Oh, don't worry about it," Nick said, and she might have been seeing what she wanted to see, but even only able to see his back she thought he seemed touched by the raw emotion in her voice.

That, or it was just making him uncomfortable. He did slow down somewhat, and he turned and offered her an elaborately embroidered handkerchief that had seemed simply to appear in his paw. "Most mammals don't even believe a fox alchemist is possible, you know," he said, "I'm very suspicious."

He waggled his fingers as he said it, and let out a rueful little chuckle that struck Judy as deeply bitter. She could only guess at what he had experienced in his life that had brought him to this point; it occurred to her, for the first time, that an alchemist as skilled as he was should be doing much better than traveling the length of the city-state entering bids for jobs. Nick could have been the court alchemist of a minor noble or a wealthy commoner merchant, even without a membership in the Alchemist Guild, and lived a life of leisurely patronage with all the funding for pet projects he could dream of. What did it say about him that he wasn't? It didn't seem as simple as him being uninterested in such a job, and Judy wondered what he had thought to himself as she had described the obstacles she had overcome to become the first rabbit to join the City Guard.

Judy gave a watery little laugh as she dabbed at her eyes. The handkerchief smelled like Nick, a scent like lavender mixed with something undeniably masculine and primal even if it was completely unlike any buck she had ever met, and she somewhat regretted not being able to keep it. "But not to Fermina," she said, "She's lucky to know you."

Nick grinned as he took his handkerchief back; for a moment it felt as though everything between them was exactly how it had been the previous night. But then Nick's face seemed to close on itself again—not entirely, but slightly, as though his good humor was no longer entirely natural—before he responded. "Every mammal who knows me is lucky to know me, Ensign Carrots," he said cheerfully, and Judy couldn't help but be cheered a little by his use of the nickname she hated.

"Could I meet her?" Judy asked, and before Nick had the chance to do much more than open his mouth, she hastily added, "Not because I want to ask her anything about secretly being Alfonso's daughter or anything. I'd just... like to meet her."

Nick smiled briefly, and it was his usual self-satisfied smirk, as though he knew something particularly amusing that no one else did. "Fermina  _would_  probably find it all a funny story. But your opportunity to meet her has passed, I'm afraid. Tonaltzintli should have been back in flying shape hours ago, and she was going to leave Phoenix as soon as he was ready."

"Oh," Judy said, and she couldn't hide her disappointment.

It would have been nice to meet someone else who knew Nick. Not just to help show she had been badly off-track when she had suspected him of a heinous crime, but also to get a better sense of him. There was something about him that was just endlessly interesting in a way Judy had never experienced before, and it wasn't just when she had spent the previous night worrying about what to do that Nick had occupied her thoughts. "Maybe you can look her up once you're back in Zootopia," Nick said, "She is a very good messenger, if you ever need one. You must have about a thousand brothers and sisters to write to back in the Tochtli Barony, right?"

"I don't have  _that_ many siblings," Judy protested, but Nick simply shrugged.

As they continued walking, he didn't speak again, leaving Judy alone with her thoughts. It had been ridiculous to assume that what had to be the most serious threat the royal family had faced in decades would simply fall into her lap, and Judy felt shame welling up once more, completely unbidden. She had spent the previous night nearly sleepless, agonizing over how to approach Nick and what she had overheard meant, but that hadn't been  _all_ she had thought of. Some small part of her, no matter how much she had tried to ignore it, had spun out the fantasies of what it would mean if she had been right and she had caught a critical part of an assassination plot. She had imagined an immediate promotion to lieutenant, maybe even to captain, and the sort of glory and honors even the members of the Queen's Council could only dream of.

No matter how much Judy told herself that those things didn't matter compared to keeping Zootopia and the royal family safe, it would have been nice to be able to show, once and for all beyond any reasonable doubt, that bunnies could be valuable members of the City Guard. Still, she actually found herself more grateful than she would have guessed that Nick really did have a perfectly rational explanation for what she had seen and heard; if she had to prove herself the hard and long way that's what she would do. And who knew? Perhaps she could have more opportunities to be with Nick and—"Well now," Nick said, interrupting her thoughts, "We're nearly to the shop."

Judy looked around, but the part of Phoenix they were in didn't seem particularly special. In fact, it looked a little run-down. The buildings, although all made of white stone as seemed customary for Phoenix, had a nasty grimy appearance to them, soot turning them a dingy gray. The street had narrowed, too, and the crowds had thinned out; it looked especially seedy to her, an impression that was not helped at all by the mammals who walked past. The street traffic in the part of Phoenix they had found themselves in looked especially rough. She saw a stoop-shouldered camel, his arms covered with scars and scabs, shuffle past as he pushed a cart covered with dirty little stones that were nonetheless intricately carved. In front of a store, a grimy badger seemed to be playing a game of chance with a crew of equally filthy mice all with little brushes set down near the board.

At first none of the mammals made sense, and then suddenly they did. These mammals, she realized, were the ones who went down into the ruins Phoenix was built atop to salvage useful or interesting centuries-old trinkets, and some of them seemed to have paid dearly for it. In the dim shadows of an alleyway there sat a legless ferret, horrible scars visible on his chest through the tattered remains of his clothes. He simply stared ahead, silent and nearly corpse-like except for his occasional blinking, next to a crudely lettered sign that read, in three lines, "TEGUIXINCATL TOOK MY LEGS AND MY PARTNER. NEED MONEY FOR REGENERATION. ANYTHING HELPS."

Although he was the most dramatic example, he was not the only mammal who appeared maimed; Judy saw others with burn scars, missing fingers, and even one poor stoat with an arm that looked strangely withered. "Treasure hunting's even more dangerous than riding an eagle," Nick said in a low voice, giving Judy a nudge, "Come on, this way."

He led her off the main street and into a narrow alleyway that was completely empty, albeit filled with the powerful smell of rotting vegetables. "This book you want, it came from the ruins?" Judy asked in a whisper, despite how alone they were.

"Yes," Nick said briefly, "It's called the Golden Codex. You can remember that, right? It's about this big, this thick, and all the pages are gold."

As he spoke, he vaguely sketched out the dimensions in thin air of what would be a sizable book, at least for a bunny. "And it's made of gold?" Judy asked; she had seen her fair share of books, but never one made out of metal of any sort.

"Very thin sheets of it, yes," Nick said, "Anything printed on paper didn't survive the last few centuries."

Before she had the chance to do much more than wonder how many books had survived the cataclysm that had befallen Quimichpatlan Barony, Nick thrust a heavy fish leather bag into her paws that produced the musical clink of money. "Here, this should cover it. I'd go in with you, but I think he wouldn't sell it to you out of spite if I came along, the stubborn old goat. It's that shop there."

Nick pointed out a storefront that seemed noticeably cleaner than either of its neighbors, and Judy nodded. "I'll be right back," she said, and Nick smiled.

"I'll be waiting."

Judy made her way across the street briskly, climbing the creaking and splintered wooden steps that led up to a front door set deeply into the thick stone wall. When she opened the door, a little bell atop it jangled and she stepped into the gloom of the bookstore. It was rather poorly lit; the store didn't have any windows, and towering shelves and lopsided stacks of books seemed to block most of the light of the few alchemical torches that had been set into the walls. The air was full of the musty smell of old paper, but there was something else in it, something unpleasant and harsh. "Hello?" Judy called out, but there was no answer.

She took another step forward, carefully maneuvering around a pile of books each nearly as large as she was, but she still couldn't see the counter. The wooden floorboards groaned under her feet as she kept moving, until suddenly one of her feet was wet. Grimacing, more in annoyance than anything else, Judy looked down to see what she had stepped in.

At first, she told herself it was just ink. Just a spilled bottle of red ink, going somewhat tacky from drying. But there was a lot of it, a lot more than would be in anything but an elephant-sized bottle, and the liquid didn't have the splash pattern a dropped bottle would make, and ink didn't have a nauseatingly rich coppery scent. The puddle she had stepped in was, in fact, part of a massive streaky red mess flowing from near the back of the store where the floor wasn't quite level.

It was blood.

Judy tightened her grip on her spear, took in a deep breath, and called, "If there's anyone in here, this is the City Guard. This is your last chance to show yourself."

She strained her ears as much as she could, but all she heard was something slowly dripping. Judy took another step forward, keeping one paw near her quauhxicallis, and some isolated part of her mind noted how strange it was that she had been more nervous about confronting Nick than being on what had to be the scene of a murder. At first, as she got closer and closer to the back of the store, she wasn't sure what she was seeing. The source of the puddle was a lumpy mass, and once she got close enough Judy realized that it had been a goat, once upon a time, but it was barely recognizable as a corpse.

The poor goat seemed to have exploded from the ribs down, creating a mess of spongy bits Judy didn't want to think about that coated the floor and the walls. The goat's upper body had survived in better shape, but the gore of his terrible death had coated his head and arms and soaked into his fur. Despite that, an expression of terrible agony was visible on his face, and Judy was suddenly aware of her fur standing up stiffly from her body.

The goat had to be the shopkeeper Nick had mentioned wouldn't sell him a book, and he was unquestionably dead. Whether that had anything to do with the blood magicians that the Phoenix City Guard was looking for she couldn't even guess, but it was her duty to report it. Moving as quickly as she could in the dim light, Judy retraced her steps to the front door of the shop, but before she could even touch the handle it swung open with the chime of the bell on the top.

The sudden brightness of the light made it hard to recognize the mammal at first, but as her eyes adjusted Judy saw it was Lieutenant Colonel Cencerro. Behind him, sandwiched between two burly members of the City Guard, was Nick. His paws had been cuffed together and his head muzzled, and he hung limply like a puppet with its strings cut. Before Judy could call out to him, Cencerro spoke in a commanding tone. "Drop the spear, ensign."


	22. Chapter 22

After summoning a guard to search Wilfrido's shop for the platinum piece, Bogo stalked out of the jail and towards his waiting carriage with his mind whirling. He had two mammals, now, who had each independently pointed a finger at a blood magician named Valentina who lived in Phoenix. He didn't trust Wilfrido as far as he could throw him—well, that wasn't quite true; considering how scrawny the weasel was that implied far too much trust. Bogo didn't trust Wilfrido as far as  _Wilfrido_  could throw him, and at the image it conjured up in his head his lip twitched slightly. In any event, he was more eager than ever to hear what Lieutenant Colonel Cencerro and his soldiers came up with in Phoenix; it seemed he finally had a very strong lead.

Not that it seemed to be reflected in the information he had on Valentina, though. Bogo flipped through the slim file as he walked, his frown creasing his face. The tigress specialized in feline quauhxicallis, which it seemed both would-be assassins had used. She lived in Phoenix, where it would be far easier to sacrifice a cheetah to make them than it would in the Inner or Middle Baronies. But no matter how he scanned through the file, Bogo simply couldn't see a motive.

Valentina had no direct relation to the sole line of noble tigers (excepting, of course, the possibility of illegitimacy), and didn't even have any kind of business connection to the noble lines of any other species. She had never so much as been questioned for anti-monarchy sentiment, either; Valentina didn't seem to have any vested interest in toppling the monarchy or somehow moving up the ranks of nobility. Her business was neither on the verge of collapse or extraordinarily successful, but there were some things that never showed up in official files. Of course, it was also quite possible that, as Wilfrido had suggested, the tigress was simply greedy and willing to do any blood magic requested of her if the price was right. For all Bogo knew, she might have a terrible gambling habit that she needed money to feed, but he wasn't getting anywhere by ruminating over it endlessly.

Bogo shook his head to clear it as he stuffed the file on Valentina back into its folder, and when he looked up saw an unpleasant surprise waiting for him. There, standing next to his carriage red-faced and looking somewhat abashed, was Lord Cerdo. The sight of the pig triggered a memory in Bogo that hit him like a metal pole. He stopped dead five feet from his carriage as the image flooded his head, almost as vivid as if it was actually happening, of when Jaime had been rushing down the hallway at them. In the instant right before Jaime had taken a massive swipe at Bogo's face, Cerdo had huddled to the floor, cringing as he turned his head away, and squealed, "Please, don't hurt us!"

Bogo still didn't remember anything after that, but considering the way his jaw still ached Jaime obviously hadn't listened. He shoved the memory aside; from his prior experience with concussions there was no telling if he would ever remember any more and he saw no point in dwelling on it. That Cerdo had been of absolutely no help was not a surprise; the pig had never served in the City Guard, and even if he had ever trained to fight it was obvious just from looking at him that he was rather soft. Of the three members of the Queen's Council (or, as Bogo mentally amended, the three  _other_ members of the Queen's Council) Corazón was the only one who might have been any help.

If Cerdo had found Bogo's behavior odd, it didn't show. "Lord Bogo!" Cerdo said, and Bogo noted that the pig was puffing as though he had just sprinted over from somewhere, "Allow me to congratulate you on your elevation to the ranks of nobility."

Hearing the fussy pig call him "lord" almost made the whole mess that had come along with the title worth it. Almost.

"Thank you, Lord Cerdo," Bogo replied, accepting the lord's proffered hoof; for a pudgy little pig Cerdo had a surprisingly strong grip.

After pumping Bogo's hoof twice, Cerdo let go, grinning up at him awkwardly. "Please, forgive me Lord Bogo," he said, mopping at the short bristles atop his round head with a frilly handkerchief, "The guards wouldn't allow my carriage to approach, and..."

That would certainly explain why the pig was out of breath, at least; he was in incredibly poor shape to be winded after such a relatively short walk. "A security precaution," Bogo said, "Years ago, someone tried breaching the walls with explosives."

"Really?" Cerdo asked, sounding genuinely impressed, "How incredible!"

"It didn't succeed," Bogo replied shortly, "What brings you to Oztoyehuatl's Jail?"

Cerdo gave him that same awkward smile he had favored him with as he shook Bogo's hoof. "I... Well, I wanted to apologize for being useless."

There were many, many occasions Bogo could think of when the pig had been useless at best, but considering the memory that had just drifted up through his mind he knew what Cerdo meant. "You aren't a member of the City Guard," Bogo replied, "Protecting the princess isn't your responsibility."

"Well, no," Cerdo began, "However... I expect you don't know what it's like to be a coward, Lord Bogo."

Of all the things Cerdo could have said, that was about the most surprising. Hearing lords admitting to mistakes was rare as hen's teeth, and Bogo didn't think he had ever heard a lord admit to lacking courage. "I was terrified," Cerdo continued, and he didn't seem capable of meeting Bogo's eyes, "I know  _I_ couldn't have done anything, but..."

He trailed off, rather lamely, and Bogo took a closer look at him. He had never particularly cared for Cerdo, but he supposed that the pig was extending an olive branch by admitting his weakness. They were, technically at least, equals now, and Bogo was sure he could use allies more than enemies as a full member of the Queen's Council. "You likely would have died if you had tried," Bogo said, and that was his own olive branch.

The pig might be a coward, but at least he admitted it. "You have nothing to apologize for," Bogo said, and Cerdo nodded gratefully.

"Thank you, Lord Bogo," he said, "There's a council meeting being called and I volunteered to collect you."

The pig's expression briefly darkened, as though a shadow was passing over it. "I didn't want to take any guards away from the princess," he said, with a shameful glance at the ground.

Bogo nodded and gestured toward his carriage. "We can take my carriage back," he said, and that was how he found himself riding back to the palace with Cerdo chattering away incessantly and yet saying nothing.

It was a mercy when they finally returned to the palace; Cerdo had first invited Bogo and his wife to a dinner party and then spent the next ten minutes explaining, in excruciating detail, how all of the guests were related and where the rare ingredients for each of the courses had been sourced. Bogo thought himself rather talented at ignoring distractions, but the pig's droning voice seemed to pierce his head, which was still aching from the lingering effects of how Jaime had hit him. As he unfolded himself from the carriage, Bogo thought back to what he had considered on the ride. He had enough evidence to suggest a conspiracy involving Jaime and Valentina, but did it extend any further? Cerdo's admittance of cowardice had made him think that Corazón's actions were rather more suspicious than he had initially thought. The lion was rather prideful, and likely would have thrown himself on his own sword before admitting to cowardice. He was also, unlike either Cerdo or Cencerro, a large and strong predator in excellent shape. A large, strong predator who never turned down the opportunity to play the hero when it came to politics but had apparently stood by and done nothing as Bogo nearly got his head knocked off his shoulders.

Bogo made a mental note to himself to follow up on the investigation he was having done into Corazón's potential linkages to blood magicians; if the lion was a co-conspirator he would happily arrest him while he still had the authority to do so. For the sake of thoroughness, though, Bogo set that happy thought aside and followed Cerdo through the palace. Rather unsurprisingly, considering the pig's substantial girth, he elected to take the lift rather than the stairs to get to the queen's suites. It made sense, from a safety perspective, to move the meetings of the Queen's Council from the traditional room, low in the palace, to the greater protection afforded by the royal suites.

Still, the break from tradition was somewhat disturbing, and even if everyone was at their usual positions just in a different room, it just didn't feel right to have a council meeting in an airy sitting room rather than the brooding council room. Of course, part of that might have been the guards that stood as grim sentinels by the door—four total, two on each side of the door—and part of it might have been that it was Bogo's first meeting as a full member of the council rather than just a representative of the City Guard. He and Cerdo were the last to arrive; Cencerro and the queen were in the middle of an earnest yet rather forced sounding conversation about the latest products for taking care of wool, which the princess seemed to be only half-paying attention to, her eyes continually darting to the door and windows. Corazón was sitting quietly, reading through a packet of papers he seemed to have brought with him. Before Bogo could catch sight of what they were, though, the lion slipped them into a sturdy-looking sharkskin case and looked up at him. "Now that we're all assembled," the queen said, breaking off her conversation as Bogo and Cerdo entered the room, "Allow me to formally introduce the newest member of my council, Lord Bogo."

None of the mammals in the room seemed particularly surprised; Bogo felt a pang of regret that he hadn't had the opportunity to see how any of them had reacted to the queen's decision. The princess applauded the announcement enthusiastically, and one by one the members of the Queen's Council joined in with significantly less spirit. "I am honored to serve, your majesty," Bogo said, inclining his head stiffly.

It was the traditional way for a new member of the Queen's Council to formally report in, and even if he was likely the first new member of the Queen's Council in centuries to make the statement anywhere besides the official chamber, it felt appropriate. "With that happy business addressed," the queen continued, "Lord Bogo, if you could please summarize the current standing of your investigation?"

Bogo exchanged a wordless glance with the queen, silently asking her if she was sure she wanted the entire council to hear it. She nodded slightly, and Bogo stood to address the others, hooves clasped behind his back. The queen, he noted, was paying far more attention to the other members of his audience than to him, and he realized what she was doing; she was seeing if anyone reacted. Unfortunately, so far as he could tell, no one did, and from how the queen's expression didn't change he guessed that she hadn't seen anything either. When he had come to the end of his recitation, Corazón was the first to speak. "A mammal with no face?" he said, and the skepticism in his voice was obvious, "Isn't it more likely that this weasel made it all up?"

"It could be some kind of alchemy trick," Cencerro cut in before Bogo could say anything, "Not that I'm an alchemist."

The little sheep chuckled slightly and seemingly nervously, and Bogo nodded. "I would like an alchemist to weigh in," he said.

"I'll ask Tomas," the princess said, seeming rather proud to be able to contribute.

"And as for your question, Lord Corazón," Bogo continued, "It is certainly possible. However, I don't think it's likely."

"You are the expert," Corazón replied, an insincere smile stretching across his face.

"Indeed," the queen said, and Bogo thought he heard a note of warning in it; certainly Corazón's smile vanished.

"I think—" the princess began, but there was a sudden knock at the door and everyone in the room jumped a little.

Bogo saw the insides of Cencerro's ears flush in embarrassment at having been startled, and even the queen's poise took a moment to reassert itself. The two guards on the inside of the door went through a rushed and quiet verification—Bogo heard the sign and countersign being spoken—before opening it. A breathless moose in the uniform of a City Guard lieutenant rushed in and saluted Bogo crisply. "Captain General, sir," the lieutenant said, "We haven't received any messages back from Phoenix."

Bogo frowned briefly. It was true that, by now, he should have received an acknowledgement that the Phoenix City Guard was actively looking for Valentina, if not a confirmation that Lieutenant Colonel Cencerro had taken her into custody, but communication with Phoenix wasn't always perfect. Caravans of supplies only went to the settlement every few weeks or so, banding together for mutual protection and to lower the shipping costs, and while messenger birds were much more frequent they were still too expensive to be really common. Besides, messengers sometimes got blown off course by heavy winds shrieking through the gap in the Outer Wall or attacked by wild hawks, but it was for those reasons it was the standard policy of the City Guard to send important messages with two independent messengers. Still, it wasn't entirely outside normal delays quite yet, and Bogo answered, "Thank you for the update, lieutenant. Let me know when we  _do_ receive a message."

Bogo could remember being an eager-to-please lieutenant himself, and while the interruption to report that there was no news was mildly irritating, it certainly wasn't worth publicly dressing the guardsmammal down over. Rather than taking the obvious cue that he was being dismissed, however, the lieutenant shook his head. "Sir, you don't understand," he said, "It's been two days since  _any_ message has come back from Phoenix."

"Two days?" Bogo repeated.

"Yessir."

For as long as Bogo could remember, at least one or two messenger birds had always made their way back from the settlement every day, even if it was only at the behest of one of the more powerful guilds. For Phoenix to suddenly be completely cut off... Bogo felt an icy sensation forming in the pit of his stomach. Something was deeply, deeply wrong, and he had no doubt it was connected to the mysterious blood magician Valentina and the attempts on the princess's life. "Assemble a recon squad and march them out to Phoenix," he said, barking the orders even as he thought them up, "Have them pay a messenger to go with them, whatever the cost. And pay a messenger to fly out there and come back, too. I want a report the  _instant_ we know what's going on there."

The lieutenant saluted and dashed out of the room, and Bogo turned to look at the other members of the council. He had almost forgotten that they were present, but as he took in the stunned faces, the queen spoke. "Captain General," she said, her voice somewhat faint, "In the name of the gods, what's happening in Phoenix?"

* * *

**Author's Notes:**

I skipped the author's notes on my last chapter for dramatic impact, but I did have a few points to mention, so I'll get to those before the ones for this chapter.

The risk of being eaten by your mount does seem like a very real possibility if you're a shrew and ride an eagle. Indeed, considering how badly a horse can injure a human rider, it seemed realistic for it to at least be a concern; horses at least won't eat you.

Attempting to kill a member of the royal family is one of the go to examples of high treason in countries with a monarchy; depending on the reason for attempting regicide it might also hit a bunch of other charges of high treason like aiding a foreign power. All things considered, Nick takes the implied accusation remarkably well.

"Teguixincatl" isn't a real Nahuatl word, but is one that I made up by combining the words for a kind of lizard and spider. I figure that's the sort of creature of nightmares that you really don't want to face, and is simply one example of why venturing into the ruins under Phoenix is so dangerous.

Considering the type of magic that is available in this setting, I figured it made sense for the regeneration of lost body parts to at least be possible, albeit extremely expensive.

As mentioned in the notes for chapter 14, gold is an excellent material for making a long-lasting record. Of course, in chapter 14 it was Bogo who was in the royal library and saw books with gold pages; considering Judy is from a minor barony and is a low-ranking member of the City Guard, I thought it made sense for her to have never seen one before.

In a world where mammal leather is verboten, fish leather seems a practical substitute; it is possible to make and can be quite durable.

Anything more about chapter 21 would be spoilers, so I hope you'll understand as I now proceed to the notes for chapter 22.

One thing that the movie does show, that I've tried to capture as well, is that while Bogo is stern and unexpressive most of the time, he does have some depth, including a sense of humor. That he finds the idea of a weasel trying to throw him amusing is, I suppose, not the strangest thing about him.

The existence of alchemy seems like it would make explosives generally easier to create, and keeping strange carriages away from a jail seems like a fairly sensible precaution to me.

Cerdo did in fact admit to being wrong in chapter 10, as Bogo recalls in this chapter.

The chamber the Queen's Council meets in first appeared in chapter 2, where it was noted to be an old room low in the palace. Considering that an assassination attempt happened in that room, relocating to somewhere else probably seemed prudent.

Sharkskin can indeed be made into a sort of durable leather, which is typically called shagreen.

As always, thanks for reading! If you're so inclined to comment, I'd love to know what you thought!


	23. Chapter 23

Judy had never given much thought to what it would be like to be arrested. She had always done her best to obey the law, and had always,  _always_  assumed that the City Guard would do its best to correct mistakes. The bad old days of the City Guard pulling mammals from their beds in the night for imagined crimes had been done for centuries; everyone knew that. The City Guard was unfailingly professional, she had always believed, and on the day she had received her golden torc Judy's heart had about burst from pride at finally being a member.

But as she had been dragged through the streets of Phoenix back to the barracks, her feet not even touching the ground as she was effortlessly hustled along by a guardsmammal three times her height who seemed totally deaf to her protests, that confidence in the City Guard began to waver. And when she had been unceremoniously tossed into a holding cell, Nick's limp body sprawling across the floor a moment before she hit it herself, she couldn't help but think that the terrible error that was being made would never be fixed.

Judy tried to push that awful thought aside, instead turning her focus to Nick. She grabbed him by the front of his robes and, with a grunt of effort, rolled him onto his back; he had landed in the cell face down and was surprisingly heavy. "Nick?" she asked, grabbing his head in her paws and pulling his face toward her, "Nick, can you hear me?"

Her voice cracked as she spoke and she felt hot helpless tears running down her face. Nick uttered a low and wordless moan, his eyes rolled back into his head so far she could only see the whites. Judy frantically ran her paws through the dense fur of Nick's head, desperately trying to find a bump or a bleeding wound; the words of one of her instructors passed unbidden through her mind.  _Never_ ever _hit a mammal in the head unless you're willing to kill them_ , the gruff polar bear had said one day,  _Or unless you want a vegetable_.

What if Cencerro and his guards had hit Nick hard enough that he'd never be the same? Was there a chance that he really had been reduced to—Judy shook her head fiercely and tried desperately to remember everything she had ever learned about head wounds, but no matter how she searched she couldn't find an injury to his head. "Hey!" she called out desperately, "He needs someone to look at his head!"

There was no response, but Judy hadn't really expected one. They had been brought down to a sub-basement of the barracks; although it was not unusual for barracks to have underground holding cells, she had never before seen a cell exactly like the one she was in. It was similar to the cells of Oztoyehuatl's Jail meant for holding alchemists, which Judy had toured once while still in the academy. Rather than being a thick box of diamond broken only by air holes too small for any mammal to get through, the cell had closely spaced prisms of diamond, each nearly a foot thick at their widest. Judy might have been able to get her arm through one of the gaps, but certainly not her head or the rest of her body, and she had no hopes of pulling the bars, which looked to be deeply sunk into the floor, apart. Unlike the cells in Oztoyehuatl's Jail, though, it actually had a door— _the Phoenix City Guard must not have any alchemists to make a hole in a solid wall_ , some distant part of Judy's mind told her—but it was just as solidly built of diamond as the bars and Judy had certainly never learned how to pick a lock. Like those cells for alchemists in Oztoyehuatl's Jail, though, there was a circle of glowing alchemical symbols surrounding the cell, about six feet from the nearest side, and Judy could feel the same sort of static tingle in her fur she had always felt when Nick performed alchemy of any kind. Beyond the cell, there was nothing else in the sub-basement; they had been brought to a level below the normal cells meant for normal mammals.

The glowing circle of the anti-alchemy array was the only light, palely illuminating stone walls smooth as glass that looked to have been carved out of the earth and just barely providing enough light to see the door that led to the stairs. Judy couldn't see or hear anyone else in the sub-basement with them, or keeping watch at the door; it felt as though they had been thrown into a pit and forgotten. "Please!" Judy yelled as loudly as she could.

There was no response. The sub-basement was almost deathly quiet, the stone walls and ceiling so thick that Judy couldn't even hear anything happening on the levels above them; the only sounds she could hear were her own rapid breaths and Nick's much slower ones. She took a deep and somewhat unsteady breath, forcing herself to focus. If no one else was going to come help, Nick needed her.

He didn't seem to have a head wound, but that didn't mean that he was uninjured; what if he had been stabbed and had passed out from blood loss? Judy roughly pulled Nick's robes open, and despite the seriousness of the situation had to immediately look away, her ears burning; the cream-colored stripe on the underside of Nick's muzzle went  _all_ the way down. She forced herself to turn back toward Nick, firmly keeping her eyes focused on his chest as she ran her paws through the soft fur. She couldn't find any injuries or bloody spots, not even when she carefully rolled him onto his side to check his back. Judy closed his robes as best she could, having ripped some of the delicate buttons with how quickly she had pulled them open, and put one ear up against his chest. She had no idea just how fast a fox's heart was normally supposed to beat, but like his breathing his heart rate was incredibly slow.

Judy frowned as she considered what her examination of Nick had taught her, besides a visual she did her best to push out of her head. He didn't have a bump on his head or any cuts anywhere on his body. He seemed barely conscious and unable to move or respond; he had barely shifted at all while she had been examining him, and while he had moaned a few times it hadn't been anything resembling words. His heart and his breathing were both incredibly slow. Putting it all together, what did that leave? Poison, perhaps? If so, there wasn't anything she could do; she knew even less about poison than she did about head injuries. Still, her mind couldn't help but jump to the worst case scenario; had Cencerro dosed Nick with something slow-acting to give him an agonizing death? Nick didn't  _seem_ to be in pain, but she couldn't tell for sure. She wasn't a healer of any kind, and for all she knew Nick was dying before her eyes.

Judy wasn't sure how long she waited, keeping her attention firmly focused on Nick, before anything else happened. There were no windows in the sub-basement or anything to tell the passage of time; it might have been hours that crawled past. Judy had tried keeping track of time by alternating prayers that Xolotl would see fit not to claim Nick with calls for someone to come look at him, but she lost count and couldn't remember how many repetitions of the cycle she had gone through. Her mind was starting to feel numb, as though by seeing first the dead body of the goat shopkeeper, and then being arrested and thrown into a cell alongside an unresponsive Nick, she had felt too much in too short a time and simply didn't have the energy for anything more.

Even her worry over Nick was difficult to sustain; he wasn't getting any better, but he wasn't getting any worse, either. His breathing remained regular, no matter how long the gap was between each breath, and he did occasionally twitch or moan. Judy tried to take it as a good sign, forcing down the dark thought that perhaps Nick would  _never_  recover from how he was, but it was a welcome distraction when she heard the clop of hooves coming down the stairs.

Despite her excitement, Judy carefully lifted Nick's head off of her lap, where she had propped him up, and set it onto the floor as gently as she could. The cell they were in didn't have a pillow, or really much else in the way of contents; there was an incredibly uncomfortable looking cot with no padding, a chamber pot, and nothing else. She stood up, pulling her uniform tunic down to straighten it as best she could. That, at least, they had left her; although her armor, weapon, and everything she had carried on her had been confiscated, she still had her uniform and the torc that marked her as a member of the City Guard. She forced herself to stand at attention, and soon enough the thick door into the sub-basement opened noiselessly and Lieutenant Colonel Cencerro walked in alone.

Although she was dying to beg for help for Nick, Judy did her best to stay professional. All she had to do, she told herself, was demonstrate that it was a terrible mistake and she and Nick would be free to go. She was simply over-reacting, the way everyone expected a bunny to. Cencerro approached the cell, crossing the line of the anti-alchemy array but stopping about three feet short of the bars that separated them. "Ensign," he said, inclining his head.

To Judy, he looked and sounded much the same as when they had first met. His uniform was crisp perfection and his voice and face were both coldly emotionless. "Lieutenant Colonel Cencerro, sir," Judy began, unable to contain herself any further, but the sheep interrupted before she could get another word out.

"I do apologize for arresting you, ensign," he said, "You seem rather devoted to the City Guard. An admirable trait, although the company you keep leaves much to be desired."

The sheep's lip curled briefly as he glanced down at Nick. "Sir, there's something wrong with him," Judy said, the words tumbling quickly out of her mouth.

Any concern about clearing either his name or hers could wait until she was sure he would be alright, and she plunged on, "He needs a doctor, or a healer if there is one."

"There's no need for that, ensign," Cencerro said, "He was given a quauhxicalli made from sloth blood. Rather effective at incapacitating a mammal, wouldn't you say?"

"It's a quauhxicalli?" Judy asked, but she could feel warm relief flowing through her.

She hadn't even considered the possibility, but it seemed obvious in retrospect. She had heard of the most expensive quauhxicallis incorporating sloth blood to make the effects last longer, but had never heard of one deliberately intended to slow a mammal down. But then, maybe it was just how the Phoenix City Guard operated, considering the lack of functional torcs in the settlement. "Oh yes," Cencerro replied, "I would have preferred it to be poison, or perhaps a sword to the gut, but we all make do as best we can, don't we? Besides, the two of you will be dead soon enough."

At first, Judy thought that she must not have heard Cencerro correctly. It didn't make any sense that the commander of the Phoenix City Guard would speak so casually about murder, but his face was cold and grimly set. He wasn't joking, she realized; he really did mean every word he had said. "Then... Then why didn't you just kill us outside the bookstore?" Judy asked.

The question had simply come into her head and out of her mouth; none of her training had done anything to prepare her for the possibility that a superior officer would plan to kill her and a civilian. And for what? Cencerro wasn't making any sense, and for the sake of Zootopia as a whole, as well as for the sake of Nick's life and her own, she had to figure out  _why_.

Cencerro laughed, and Judy had to repress a shudder. She had never before seen a mammal with such coldly merciless eyes; his face looked almost corpse-like. "There are proper forms to be followed, ensign. Not all of my officers are quite so loyal to me as I'd like. Killing a fellow member of the City Guard—even a bunny—would be a step too far. And they'd certainly never stand for an execution without a court martial, but there simply isn't the time or the evidence."

Cencerro frowned. "You had the poor luck to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. It was supposed to be a different officer bringing the alchemist in for his bid," he said, and his eyes turned again toward where Nick lay insensate and drooling on the floor of the cell, "Someone who would have already framed him before he even set foot in Phoenix."

He sighed, but to Judy it seemed more a theatrical touch than anything he really felt. "It  _would_  have been satisfying to kill the fox myself, but in a few days both of you will be dead and none of this will matter," he said, "I do promise, though, that when I'm named Captain General of the City Guard, I'll tell your parents you died an honorable death in the tragedy at Phoenix. It'll be a comfort for them, don't you think?"

"You'll never be Captain General," Judy said with a vehemence she didn't feel.

Judy would have rather believed that Cencerro had gone mad than that he had become so corrupted, but Cencerro spoke each word with cold certainty, and at her words he smiled that awful smile again. "After Bogo's repeated mistakes, and my upcoming heroism, there won't be much of a choice," he said, "I'm already the frontrunner for the position, you see."

"You'll never be a hero, either," she said, and Cencerro simply stared at her.

His face had become a bland, unreadable mask, and she felt her skin crawl under her fur. The way that he shifted so rapidly from apparent shows of emotion to that awful inscrutable expression was somehow worse than either alone would have been. "You won't be around to see it," he said simply, "Goodbye, Ensign Tochtli, and give my regards to Nicholas."

With that, he turned and left, closing the thick door to the stairs behind him. Judy sank to the floor of the cell, her mind whirling with everything Cencerro had just said. What could he possibly mean by "the tragedy at Phoenix?" What kind of hero was he so confident he could be? She knew it was her duty to stop him, but by all the gods how was she supposed to do  _that?_

* * *

It was sometime later when Nick became responsive again; over the course of perhaps an hour his movements started becoming more frequent and seemed more deliberate, and at last he sat up, rubbing gingerly at his head. "Nick!" Judy cried, and she wrapped her arms around him, "Are you alright?"

She couldn't help herself; after so much time spent alone with her own thoughts, her relief at seeing Nick apparently recovered was too great to be contained. "Fine," he said, although he sounded bewildered as he looked around, "Why are we in jail? What happened?"

Judy did her best to summarize everything that had happened; Nick's memory of events apparently ended shortly after she had entered the bookshop. She didn't think she told the story particularly well—in trying to tell him everything as quickly as she could, she kept stumbling over her words or diverting to tangents or asking him again how he felt—but Nick listened attentively, and when she had at last explained what Cencerro had said on visit, she came to a stop. "I'm really sorry," she said, "I was only following you because Cencerro ordered me to, and now—"

"You never could have seen  _this_ coming," Nick said, cutting her off, "I certainly didn't."

He glanced around the cell, his features set in a frown, but Judy couldn't stop. "No, but I still should have trusted you enough to just talk to you when you were talking to Fermina," she said, "You weren't doing anything wrong and Cencerro was obviously just trying to—"

Nick squirmed in apparent discomfort at her show of emotion, putting a paw on Judy's shoulder as he interrupted again. "Let's forget about that," he said, "What do we do now?"

He sounded somewhat lost, and Judy couldn't blame him. He had gone from planning to put in a bid on a minor government contract to getting arrested as part of some inscrutable plot that could only involve the overthrowing of that government. Judy still had no idea how all the pieces fit together—was arresting Nick part of Cencerro's plan, or was it simply a bonus to his obvious grudge?—but she thought she knew enough to be sure that the attempt on the princess's life was somehow connected to whatever Cencerro was planning. She had no idea what that could possibly be, but from how he had phrased it she thought that at least some of the Phoenix City Guard was loyal to him and it wouldn't go well for the inhabitants of the settlement.

"We need to get back to Zootopia and warn Captain General Bogo that Cencerro is going to do something," Judy said.

It wasn't much of a plan, but it was all she could think of. Nick's skepticism was plainly written across his face as he considered her for a long moment. "No one's  _ever_  escaped from one of these cells, you know," Nick said.

"No bunny ever joined the City Guard until I did," Judy answered firmly, "We're going to get out of here. I  _know_ we can."

It didn't matter that she had absolutely no idea  _how_ they would accomplish it, but her confidence in herself and Nick was unshakable. The simple truth, though, was that unless Nick knew how to pick locks, and happened to have a lock pick set on him that the guards hadn't confiscated, he had no way of opening the door. He couldn't do alchemy while they were in the cell and its surrounding anti-alchemy array, which seemed to be quite the obstacle to a successful escape. If the guards had left Judy her quauhxicallis—which they hadn't—she might have been able to at least try to force the lock, but she couldn't even do that much.

Nick was silent a moment, perhaps considering their situation as she was, and then suddenly laughed. "You know, Master Rogelio beat me for the contract on this cell," he said, shaking his head ruefully, "He had some words about the dangers of letting a fox design a... how did he put it? 'A cell he was bound to occupy someday.' And wouldn't you know? That miserable old porcupine was actually right about something."

He was smiling, though, and it brightened his entire face. It was nothing like his usual smirk, and when he spoke again Judy's heart leaped. "Rogelio's a good alchemist, but not a very clever one," he said, "Come on, Carrots, let's see what we have to work with."

* * *

**Author's Notes:**

In works of fiction, hitting someone in the head is often seen as a harmless off button with no lasting effects. In real life, it's extremely bad for you to get hit in the head hard enough to get knocked out. It can easily cause permanent impairment if it doesn't simply result in death, and I've done my best to avert this trope in my stories. Bogo suffered a severe concussion as a result of the blow he took to the head, and without magic would have likely been in worse shape, and it speaks highly of Judy's instructors that they warned against attempting to temporarily incapacitate someone with a headshot.

Judy noting that she's not a doctor isn't a deliberate reference to my Sherlock AU series, in which Judy is indeed a doctor, but I suppose Dr. Hopps would have better luck coming to a differential diagnosis.

As has been previously established, the high security cells in Oztoyehuatl's Jail are hollow boxes of diamond without any doors; opening them requires an alchemist to make a hole. Considering that Phoenix is really on the outskirts of civilization, and alchemists are rare to begin with, I figured it made sense that they wouldn't be able to exactly copy the city-state's most secure cells.

Judy using a prayer in an attempt to tell the passage of time is a method that was actually pretty commonly used before clocks were accessible. Some old recipes, for instance, would give the time needed for a step, such as simmering or baking, in how many times the Lord's Prayer was to be said before moving to the next step. Xolotl was the Aztec god of death, Quetzalcoatl's brother and, interestingly enough, a canine.

Up until this point, all mentions of quauhxicallis in this story have shown their positive effects in granting mammals abilities they don't normally have or strengthening their existing ones. However, this chapter also shows quauhxicallis can be used to make a mammal weaker, in this case by using a sloth as the donor of the blood. Sloths do indeed have incredibly slow metabolisms, less than half of what a typical mammal their size would have. I figure metabolism greatly influences how long a quauhxicalli lasts; ones that dramatically increase a mammal's speed and reaction time lasting only minutes while one that dramatically slows them down lasting hours.

Court martials go back centuries, and in many countries the military system of justice is separate from the civilian judicial system. This chapter suggests that such a division exists in this setting, and that as a military officer Judy would be tried by a court martial for any crimes she committed.

This chapter also indirectly answers a question that was asked earlier about the anti-alchemy arrays used to contain alchemists. The circles only prevent alchemy from working, not quauhxicallis; Judy notes that if she had hers she could at least try something.

Judy's thoughts refer to the "attempt" on the princess's life rather than "attempts" because she only knows of one; the information regarding Jaime's attempt did not make its way to her. Both storylines have critical information that the other doesn't, and I hope you'll enjoy seeing how things proceed as they progress toward the point where they finally intersect! As always, thanks for reading, and if you're so inclined as to comment I'd love to hear what you thought.


	24. Chapter 24

An unfortunate truth Bogo had learned early in his career was that there was simply never enough time for everything that needed to be done. Even a full day after learning that all communication with Phoenix had been severed, Bogo still hadn't left the palace. Or slept.

He had holed up in his office, coordinating the flow of the City Guard and drinking mug after mug of cacahuatl until the jitteriness of his eyes overcame the dull pressure building behind them. Bogo was exhausted, bone-weary in a way he couldn't remember ever having been in his youth when it had seemed as though his reserves of energy were infinite, but still he pressed on. After dispatching the two teams he had assigned to travel to Phoenix and report back, he had called for all the information that could be assembled about the last mammals to go to or return from the settlement.

The answers, unfortunately, were rather thin. Messengers to and from Phoenix were relatively rare, but there were enough of them that tracking down the most recent visitors to Phoenix was proving difficult. And that was only the official messengers who paid the taxes assessed on correspondences; Bogo was not foolish enough to believe that there weren't some unlicensed messengers who belonged to no official guild. No matter how much the City Guard tried to clamp down on those unlicensed messengers, there were always those who could slip through the cracks. Birds were simply too capable, especially when paired with an experienced rider, of getting past any kind of observation. The solution Bogo had proposed, shortly after becoming Captain General, had been to add stricter licensing requirements for aviaries within the city walls; if he couldn't stop messengers from sneaking into the city he would simply prevent them from hiding their birds once they had done so.

Bogo didn't believe for a moment that the city was completely free of unlicensed aviaries, but his measures had seemed to greatly reduce the number of covert messengers.  _Or_ , he thought with a sigh as he flipped over to the next report on his desk,  _they just got better at hiding._  In any case, he had dispatched members of the City Guard to both the Messenger's Guild and to the three officially licensed aviary guilds, but none of them had turned up anything yet. The last few messengers who had successfully returned from Phoenix reported nothing out of the ordinary, and Bogo had authorized a reward for anyone capable of tracking down messengers who had gone missing. There were only three officially licensed messengers—a male mouse, a female vole, and a female jerboa—who had yet to be accounted for. They might be trapped in Phoenix, or drinking away their pay in Zootopia for all Bogo knew, but it was a better lead than none at all.

Other than messengers, there was a recently returned merchant caravan that had arrived in Zootopia without incident, and another caravan was due to depart Phoenix Bogo somehow doubted would make it. There was, however, one more scheduled trip to Phoenix that he couldn't help but find particularly interesting. A member of the City Guard—Corazón's prized example of a non-traditional mammal succeeding in the academy, he had noted with a scowl—had been dispatched to escort an alchemist to put in a bid on a water purification project. An alchemist who was a fox and obviously not a member of the Alchemist Guild. Bogo couldn't help but wonder if the oddly matched pair had some kind of significance in whatever was going on. Was this Judy of Tochtli Barony secretly loyal to Jaime and whoever else the jaguar was working with? A bunny who had managed the extraordinary feat of graduating at the top of her class from the military academy could be a valuable asset, he had to admit. She would be weak, feeble in a real fight and likely too emotional to be much help in a crisis, but what could she manage to do with the access membership in the City Guard gave her? Somehow prevent Phoenix from communicating at all, perhaps?

Then again, perhaps it was the fox who was the real culprit. Judy of Tochtli Barony, Bogo noted, had been a last-minute replacement for a more experienced member of the City Guard who had fallen ill shortly before his scheduled departure. Unfortunate timing, perhaps. Or perhaps someone had wanted to make sure that the fox had a meek and easily overpowered member of the City Guard at his side; perhaps the fox had even poisoned Phoenix's water supply in the course of submitting his bid. There was next to no information on Nicholas of the Middle Baronies; he hadn't even taken a family name or the name of a barony for his own. Nicholas had demonstrated sufficient talent, at some time years ago, to officially qualify to be considered for government alchemy contracts, but if he had any existence outside of that there was no record. He had never been arrested, or questioned, or even forced to explain how a fox had come to know the secrets of alchemy.

Or perhaps the presence of a highly suspicious fox and a nearly equally suspicious bunny was just a coincidence. Then again, the bunny would have never become a member of the City Guard without the ludicrous "reforms" Corazón had pushed through. Was she working directly for the lion on some kind of scheme?

Bogo lifted his reading glasses and rubbed at his eyes; he didn't seem able to keep the words on the pages of the reports he was reading in focus anymore. His thoughts kept running in circles, going around and around as he tried to cudgel his tired brains into coming up with a new angle to look at things from. Bogo looked back down at the report, and for a moment had a daydream of the time when his career had just started and never involved this sort of detective work.

It was a pleasant thought, but Bogo was startled out of his reverie by a loud knock at his office door. The voice of a guardsmammal, somewhat muffled by the thickness of the door, came through. "Captain General Bogo, sir, there's someone claiming—"

"Is it the queen?" Bogo interrupted, more than a little testily.

He had left specific orders about when he was to be interrupted, and it certainly wasn't to humor random mammals.

"No, but—" the answer began, but Bogo cut the guardsmammal off again.

"Is it the princess?" he asked.

"Well, no, but—"

"Then tell them to leave a message and go away. I'm very—"

Before Bogo could finish, he found himself cut off by the sound of his office door being knocked off its hinges and loudly falling to the floor. "Samuel!" a very familiar voice thundered, "Is that any way to talk to your wife?"

Maria stood in the doorway, a fine cloud of dust settling from the ruined door around her. She was almost as tall as Bogo was, and just as solidly built; Bogo could never understand the nobles who preferred their wives (or mistresses) waif-thin. Her nostrils were flaring with emotion, her dark brown eyes narrowed in a face streaked with far less white fur than his own. She did have, Bogo noted, a new platinum torc at her neck, but she was still wearing one of the plain and simple dresses that she favored; Maria had always said that nice dresses were wasted on schoolteachers with young charges. At her sides, and absolutely dwarfed by the angry buffalo, two guardsmammals had futilely grabbed her wrists.

Bogo knew that if Maria wanted to enter, a horse and a zebra wouldn't be able to do anything to stop her, and quickly gestured for the guards to release her. "If my wife had been an assassin, I would already be dead," he told the guards dryly.

"Don't think that still isn't a possibility!" Maria snapped, pointing one massive finger at him.

"You write me these little notes," she continued, holding up the crumpled pages like an accusation as she strode into his office, "But you're not  _saying_  anything. When they showed up with this shiny new torc, I thought they were coming to say you  _died_ saving the princess!"

Her chest heaved with emotion, and the two guardsmammals behind her seemed to be doing their best to blend into the wall of the corridor. "Be more thorough with the security next time," Bogo snapped at them, "Anyone could have claimed to be my wife."

"As if anyone else would  _want_  to," Maria muttered, just loudly enough to be heard.

"And get someone to fix the door," Bogo finished, and the guards vanished down the corridor just about instantly.

"Is that all you have to say?" Maria asked, a frown darkening her face as she crossed her arms.

"I'm sorry," Bogo said, quietly, "You're right. I should have written more. Or called for you. It's—"

He never got the chance to finish. Maria had run across the room and pulled him into the tightest hug he could ever remember. She kissed him forcefully, and then rested her head on his shoulder. "Never scare me like that again, Samuel," she said fiercely, her mouth right against his ear, "Never."

Their embrace couldn't have lasted more than half a minute, and it was nowhere near long enough. Bogo wished he could have stayed there forever, his wife warm and comforting in his arms and against his chest, but he couldn't, and he gently disengaged himself. "It's a bad one, Ria," Bogo said, "The worst I've ever been on."

It was one of the little shorthands of their marriage, just as Ria was his pet name for her. Duty demanded that Bogo not share anything from his work that had any potential to compromise security. In the absence of details, Maria had taken to asking if he was working on a "bad one." Even without being able to say much more than yes or no, it somehow helped keep the work manageable, knowing that there was someone who cared so deeply about him that she'd be his sympathetic ear even when he couldn't say anything about what was bothering him.

"So it's true what the papers are saying?" Maria asked, and there was a slight anxious edge to her voice, "Someone really did try killing the princess?"

"And she really did give a direct address," Bogo said, nodding.

Maria was silent a long moment, and then she stretched out her hooves and put them at his sides. It wasn't quite a hug, not with nearly two feet between them, but the feel of her was still welcome. "You're not going to figure this out if you're too tired to think straight," she said at last, "Look at you!"

She ran one finger gently across his face. "You look like you've aged about five years since I last saw you," she said, and from the worry Bogo saw in her eyes he didn't think she was exaggerating; he had always appreciated her tendency towards bluntness, and had only grown to appreciate it more after spending so much time working around so many mammals who would do anything they could to avoid simply saying exactly what they meant.

That was what it all came down to, really; torcs could keep mammals from directly killing or hurting each other, but they couldn't keep mammals honest. As his immediate predecessor as Captain General had been fond of saying, as long as mammals lied, there would still be a need for the City Guard. There was something about that old memory that seemed to catch inside his head, and Bogo spoke before he realized what he was going to say. "Suppose you had a student steal something from one of the others," Bogo said, "But you can't find what was stolen and everyone says they didn't do it. How would you handle it?"

Maria laughed. "You want to treat the most powerful mammals in Zootopia like naughty calves?" she asked; clearly she saw the point he was getting at.

"Your students might be better behaved," Bogo replied, "But what would you do?"

Maria thought a moment. "I could punish the entire class until the thief confesses," she said, "Make them work it out themselves."

Bogo grunted. It would be extremely satisfying to simply arrest his prime suspects, but that was one way in which nobles had an advantage over students. "Suppose the thief could pay someone else off to take the fall for them," Bogo said.

"Then I wouldn't have to figure it out, would I?" Maria asked.

"What?" Bogo asked; he had a vague inkling of where she was going, but he was too tired to figure it out.

"If the thief paid someone to take the blame for them, I wouldn't know I had the wrong student, would I? Not unless the calf who confessed obviously couldn't be the thief."

Bogo had seen both Jorge de Cuvier and Jaime attempt murder, so he knew that they were at least perpetrators if not the masterminds. "Of course, it might also help to figure out why the thief stole what they did," Maria continued when Bogo remained silent, "And what they were expecting to do with it once they had it."

That was the piece that Bogo was struggling with as he turned ideas over in his head. What was the endgame of the mammal trying to kill the princess? Was it a direct grab for power? Or was it an indirect attempt? Perhaps someone was trying to frame someone else for a terrible crime simply to get them out of the way. Bogo considered his top suspects again. With the added complication of whatever had happened to Phoenix, Cencerro had become somewhat more suspicious in his mind; the commander of the Phoenix City Guard was her cousin, after all, and Diego Cencerro's knowledge would be incredibly valuable to any attempt to shut the settlement down. One of the last mammals to enter Phoenix—quite possibly the last, depending on what had happened—had been the City Guard's first rabbit officer, who never would have been able to join the City Guard without Corazón's influence. There was also how, in the last attack, Corazón hadn't lifted a finger to help. Bogo had interviewed all three of the nobles who had been witnesses, and what they said matched up with what little Bogo remembered. Cencerro had claimed to be too weak to do anything against a jaguar. Corazón said it happened too quickly for him to react.

And then there was Cerdo.

Cerdo, who had admitted to becoming paralyzed by fear. Cerdo, who had the sort of humility and ability to admit his own mistakes that was quite rare for a noble. He had no obvious connection to anything that had happened, but was that because he was innocent or because he was guilty and carefully cultivating his impression? Bogo didn't think the pig had it in him, but—"From the look on your face, I don't think I'm saying anything you haven't already thought of," Maria said, interrupting Bogo's thoughts.

Bogo repressed a yawn. "I'm thinking," he said at last, "Of the indirect paths."

Maria raised an eyebrow, but Bogo suddenly felt more certain that he was thinking about the problem the right way. What mattered were the things that only the guilty party could have done. The mysterious quauhxicallis made from the very life of a cheetah, for instance. With Phoenix suddenly having gone dark, Bogo felt more convinced than ever that the work had been done in Phoenix, which gave him a blood magician who Diego Cencerro should have arrested. But what if there was a reason he couldn't?

Bogo felt the pieces suddenly start clicking into place in his head. The connection between Diego Cencerro and Alba Cencerro was an obvious one that pointed in the ewe's direction as being involved. But if Lady Cencerro really was the guilty party, would she allow so obvious a connection to exist? He felt she was too clever for that. And if she was being framed, who was best positioned for that?

Who else but Lord Corazón? Unlike either Cencerro or Cerdo, the lion had significant investments associated with blood magicians. Was it so hard to believe he could have used those connections to find a particularly amoral one to do his dirty work? Corazón was also the only predator on the Queen's Council, and while he spoke loftily of cooperation between predator and prey, was it so difficult to believe that it was all a sham? Bogo had always been suspicious of the lord's mannerisms, which always struck him as supremely fake.

And then there were the last two pieces: the bunny member of the City Guard and the fox alchemist who would have both happened to have arrived in Phoenix right before it went dark. The bunny had an obvious connection to Corazón, and it didn't take much to imagine that a fox who had learned alchemy would have fairly flexible morals. Everything pointed perfectly in Corazón's direction, Bogo felt, everything suggesting that the lion was to blame. Or was it too perfect? Was it all a frame up?

"You're glaring at your desk like it owes you money," Maria observed, and Bogo briefly wondered how long he had been lost inside his own thoughts.

"You know," Maria observed, tapping one thoughtful finger against her lips, "There's something else I could do if I suspected a student of stealing something."

"What's that?"

"Make them think I already  _know_ that they're guilty."

An idea began taking shape in Bogo's head. He would have to be careful, of course; he'd only have one shot at it, and he'd have to arrange things so none of his top suspects knew what he was going to do. "Now there's the smile that I love," Maria said, curling an arm around Bogo's shoulder and drawing herself close, "It's just a shame I don't get to see it very often."

"I have an idea," Bogo said.

Maria chuckled. "Going to treat the lords and ladies like naughty students after all?" she asked.

"Something like that," Bogo said, stifling another yawn.

"You're in no shape to try anything now," she said, and suddenly she was pushing him away from his desk.

"You have a cot in here, don't you? You need to get some sleep before you try anything."

"I—" Bogo began, but she cut him off.

"The city isn't going to fall apart if you sleep for a few hours. I promise I'll wake you up," she said, smiling once he gave in and pushed aside the tapestry that hid the entrance to his small personal chamber.

It occurred to Bogo that it was the first time Maria had ever entered the little room; she had almost never visited him at the palace, and there had certainly never been a reason to show off the painfully utilitarian cot and bathroom. "You know what?" she asked once they were both inside, "That cot looks about the perfect size for two."

Bogo couldn't help but look first at her, then at the cot, and then back at her. It was uncomfortably small for him; two buffalo would be extremely cramped on it. "It does?" he asked, unable to keep the skepticism out of his voice.

"It does."

* * *

**Author's Notes:**

"Cacahuatl" literally means "cacao water" and was perhaps the earliest form of chocolate beverage. It consisted of hot water mixed with ground cacao beans, often with other flavors added for taste. Chocolate is a stimulant, but it's definitely not a substitute for sleep.

Taxing messengers for revenue is, I suppose, not too different from how stamps are used on physical mail in the real world.

A convoy scheduled to leave Phoenix was mentioned in chapter 15; here Bogo expresses his skepticism that any such action will occur.

After several chapters of being mentioned in passing, Bogo's wife finally shows up. I had a lot of fun writing her, and I hope she makes an entertaining character to read. She also finally reveals that Bogo does have a first name that simply hadn't been used by anyone else yet.

Bogo's cot was mentioned back in chapter 14, where he noted that it was just ever so slightly too small for him to sleep comfortably on.

One of the things I've enjoyed writing a mystery in this fashion, with multiple viewpoints, is that it provides a lot of great opportunities for showing the puzzle from multiple angles. Thank you for reading, and if you're so inclined as to leave a comment I'd love to know what you thought!


	25. Chapter 25

It hadn't taken long to take stock of their supplies; the cell had been completely empty except for the chamber pot (which was, mercifully, itself empty and quite clean) and the cot, which was solidly made of pegged-together pieces of wood. The cot was topped with a cushion so thin that it was barely more than a padded piece of cloth, and there was no pillow or sheets to go with it. Judy's own belongings amounted to the clothes on her back and nothing else; she felt a pang of regret when she realized that the little golden carrot Nick had made her had been seized.

Once they had finished their search of the cell, Nick had pulled at his robes, an expression of displeasure coloring his face. "Did they drag me here on my stomach?" he asked, "Half my buttons are broken."

Judy had felt the insides of her ears burning and coughed awkwardly, but she was spared having to explain that she had done the damage to his clothes in her attempts to see if he was injured when Nick simply heaved a sigh and sank to the floor of the cell, still fidgeting with one button. "It shouldn't be too hard to get out of here," he said at last, still playing with the broken button, and Judy immediately forgot her prior embarrassment as she sat on the floor next to him.

"Really?" she asked, her ears perking up, "Can you pick the lock?"

He had given it only the most cursory of looks; Judy had examined it more closely despite her complete lack of experience in how to break locks. To her inexpert eye it looked incredibly solid, the case made out of some dully metallic alloy with an oddly squiggly keyhole so thin she couldn't even slip a nail into it. Not that the keyhole had been easy to reach; her paw just barely fit between the gaps in the diamond bars that defined the cell and she had to bend her wrist awkwardly to grope at the lock to get a sense of it.

Nick simply chuckled. "There's generally not much of a need for alchemists to pick locks," he said dryly.

As he spoke, he succeeded in pulling the broken button off his robes, and he rolled it around in his fingers. Judy could see his point, though; if it wasn't for the anti-alchemy array she supposed it would take him less than a minute to simply transmute a way out. It seemed to follow, then, that if he wasn't going to pick the lock he was going to somehow disable the anti-alchemy array, and she stared at it from between the bars, trying to figure out what he had seen. The array simply glowed serenely from the symbols and lines in the floor; to Judy it looked as solid as the lock. "But it won't come to that," Nick continued, "I was right about Rogelio, though. You see what he did?"

Nick gestured in the direction of the anti-alchemy array, and Judy's gaze fruitlessly followed to what he was indicating. "I don't know what I'm looking at," Judy admitted, and some of the old impishness seemed to go back into Nick's features.

"Then it's very lucky for you that you're sharing a cell with a particularly clever fox," he said, puffing up his chest a little, "Rogelio made a very basic anti-alchemy array. Nothing even slightly tamper proof. Remember what happened when we were sparring and you broke my circle?"

Judy did. Nick had recovered almost instantly, but when he had reached out for his magic nothing had happened. "But how are we going to break the circle?" Judy asked, and Nick held up the button he had been playing with.

"With this," Nick said, rather triumphantly, and Judy looked from the button to the anti-alchemy array and back to the button.

The button held a diamond at its center, the metal surrounding it a bit battered. "How are we supposed to break the circle with that?" Judy asked, "Neither one of us—"

Nick was looking in the direction of the cot, and Judy cut herself off as she realized what he was planning. "So we break up the cot, tie the pieces together with the diamond at the end, and you scratch out a part of the circle?" Judy asked, and Nick nodded his approval.

"Almost as clever as I am, Carrots," he said modestly, "But it'll be  _you_  scratching out part of the circle. My arms don't fit through the bars."

Judy laughed, and she couldn't restrain herself. She reached over and hugged him tightly. "Thank you," she said, and Nick coughed, rubbing at his muzzle with one paw.

"Despite the company, I don't want to be here anymore than you do," he said, "Now come on, you've got a lot of work ahead of you."

Breaking up the cot turned out to be one of the more difficult parts of Nick's plan; whoever had built the cot had done an excellent job, and in the end it took both of them levering the cot up against one of the diamond bars to pull the pieces apart. Judy's paws were sore and smarting when they finished, but in the end they had the legs of the cot securely lashed together with strips Nick tore from the hem of his robe. Nick took care of fastening the diamond at one end of their make-shift pole, first using one of the hard corners of a cell bar to cut a narrow groove in the wood and then delicately unraveling some threads from his increasingly tattered-looking robe to tie it in place.

When Judy pushed her arm as far as it would go through the bars, holding the pole as close to one end as possible, it was just barely long enough. But it  _was_ long enough, and Nick's instructions were rather simple. All she had to do, he had said, was make a break anywhere in the circle, and it would stop working. Once he could perform alchemy again, it'd be trivial for him to get them out. And so, although it had taken what had felt like days of effort (and more realistically had been about three hours) to even get ready to begin the scheme, Judy began scratching away at the floor as quickly as she could.

* * *

"You know, there's something that's been bothering me," Nick said, "Besides being locked in a cell without food or water, I mean."

The work with the stick was mind-numbing, and Judy wasn't sure how long she had been at it, but her paw had gone almost completely numb and her shoulder ached from pressing it against the bars. Nick had busied himself preparing for his contribution to their escape; in the center of the cell he had started drawing out alchemical symbols with his own blood, obtained by pressing a finger against his sharp teeth. It had been the first time he had spoken directly to her since they had started; he had been muttering to himself, but the bits Judy caught didn't make any sense to her.

"What's that?" Judy asked, taking a break from her work.

Nick had spoken the words lightly enough, but Judy thought she understood him well enough to know that he wasn't quite joking. "Why did Cencerro tell you anything?" Nick asked, "He said we'd both be dead in a few days—no food or water  _does_  tend to do that—so why bother?"

Judy frowned. It was, she had to admit, an excellent question she hadn't considered. "To gloat, I guess?" she hazarded, and Nick shook his head.

"You don't know Cencerro the way I do," he said, and there was a wealth of meaning in how he said the words.

"Maybe you didn't know him as well as you thought."

"Maybe," Nick said, and the word was almost a sigh as he looked down at his own work.

"Why did he hate you so much, anyway?" Judy asked.

To her, at least, Cencerro's distaste for Nick had seemed far more personal than simply loathing foxes specifically or predators generally could explain. Nick took a minute to consider the question, which Judy used to attempt to massage the life back into her paw. Although Nick had been rather dismissive of the quality of the alchemy Rogelio had used to create the anti-alchemy array, the array itself was relatively wide and even with a diamond it was slow going to break it.

"Because he couldn't do anything about me," Nick said, and there was a slight smile tugging at his muzzle, "It drove him crazy, you know. Here was this fox, obviously up to something, but his honor wouldn't allow him to arrest me without evidence. Of which there never was any, of course."

"Of course there wouldn't be," Judy said, "You never broke the law."

Perhaps it was just her imagination, but Judy thought Nick avoided her eyes for a second. She might have just embarrassed him; her heart had gone out to him and he must have been able to hear the emotion in her voice. It wasn't fair for Cencerro to use the City Guard's resources to harass Nick simply because he was a fox; it went against everything she believed as a member of the City Guard. "He was obsessed with the law," Nick said thoughtfully, "I can't imagine what it would take to make him conspire against the throne."

"Maybe he thought he'd be writing the laws soon," Judy suggested, and Nick shrugged.

"His cousin  _is_ part of the Queen's Council," Nick said, "Along with the friend to all mammals and the torc heir."

Judy knew exactly who the other two mammals were that Nick was referring to; Leodore Corazón was always in the news for some initiative to help others and Esteban Cerdo's father had been perhaps the most successful merchant Zootopia had ever seen. "Do you think someone on the Queen's Council is involved?" Judy asked; considering that she owed her career to Corazón she couldn't help but hope that the lion was uninvolved in whatever Lieutenant Colonel Cencerro was a part of.

"If one of them is, his cousin would make the most sense, don't you think?" Nick asked, and Judy nodded her agreement.

She took up the stick again, pushing her concerns aside, and continuing her work. When they had started, Judy had worried that a guard might come into the sub-basement and observe what they were doing; she had listened as hard as she could after the incredible racket they had made pulling the cot apart. But the hours had gone past without any kind of interruption, and Judy supposed that Cencerro meant for them to starve or die of dehydration in the cell. Or perhaps something faster but less pleasant; for all she knew Cencerro had re-discovered the secrets of alchemy that had been used to blast the Outer Baronies into wastelands and was going to completely destroy Phoenix and everyone in it.

Whatever the case, Judy had been emboldened by the continued lack of any sort of oversight and had started working faster, falling into a monotonous routine that was broken only when the diamond she had been using had worn too much to be of any use and Nick had to replace it with one from a different button. With a fresh diamond she had gone right back to work, her lips peeled back and her brow furrowed as she concentrated on staying in the shallow groove she had created. Getting started had been the hardest part, and it had taken hours to notice any kind of defined spot where her cutting edge ran smoothly. But the spot was there, seeming to dance in her vision as she stared at the spot in the glowing circle and tried not to squint or blink in the light it threw off. She was so intent on her work, in fact, that she didn't notice at first when the light suddenly winked out and plunged the sub-basement into near total darkness.

When Judy stopped, her arm felt as though every muscle in it was complaining; even relaxing her grip to let go of the stick took far more effort than it should have. "I knew you could do it," Nick said cheerfully, clapping one friendly paw on her numb shoulder, "Now what do you say we get out of here?"

"Let's do it," Judy said, and he nodded.

Nick placed his paws against the simplest looking of the alchemical patterns he had drawn out, closing his eyes. His muzzle contorted with effort, and suddenly the bars of the cell began darkening, their near-perfect transparency giving way to dull opaqueness. The bars glowed briefly with their own internal light, but as that light faded the bars did not become transparent again; they were silvery-black and dull. Judy pushed against one and the outer surface crumbled in her paw, falling apart into a dark powder. Judy turned to Nick to congratulate him, but he had turned his attention to a significantly more complicated circle he had drawn, which seemed to cost him even more effort. He trembled as the floor of the cell writhed and changed colors, forming a portion into a smooth cylinder much longer than it was wide with a wickedly sharp-looking tip on one end. "For you," he managed, and Judy hefted the spear he had made.

It wasn't quite as perfectly balanced as her own spear, but it felt like it was made of the same strong and lightweight metal. "Are you alright?" she asked.

It took Nick a moment to respond; he almost looked as though he might vomit. The color had gone out of the insides of his ears, which had pressed themselves flat against his head, and he was still trembling and panting. "Fine," he said at last, "Just... Hard with a circle like this and no focus."

Although Nick had obviously taken quite a bit of care in drawing out his work, he hadn't had much to work with. He had apparently used a bit of thread unraveled from his robe to aid in drawing straight lines and circles, but they weren't quite as perfect as the ones she had seen him make with his tools. "Come on," Judy said, and offered him a paw; it took him a moment and then he was standing next to her.

Judy knocked against the bars with her spear, quickly making a hole large enough for both of them to walk through, and then they were next to the door. Judy was reaching for the doorknob when Nick spoke. "Wait!" he said, and he still looked completely drained from the alchemy he had done.

"What is it?" Judy asked, turning the spear over and over in her paws; she didn't want to hurt anyone, particularly not a member of the City Guard, but she was ready for action and could feel the tension of it in her.

"What if this is a trap?" Nick asked, "You know, let us escape so they can kill us escaping?"

Judy paused, trying to think up some reasonable counter that she could give. "Then they could have just killed us and made it look like a failed escape attempt," she said at last.

"You did say he didn't trust all of the guards," Nick pointed out, "But they'll pretty much all think we're guilty if they catch us escaping, right?"

"That's..." Judy began, and then stopped.

"That's a chance we have to take," she said.

Their plan, such as it was, was extremely simple. They would get out of the barracks and out of Phoenix as quickly as possible, and then head for the Middle Baronies, again as quickly as possible. It wouldn't be a pleasant trip without any supplies, and probably even more unpleasant for Nick since he'd have to make up the difference with transmutations, but unburdened they could probably make great time. Whether they would be fast enough to outrun Cencerro and whatever he had planned was an entirely different question, but they had to at least make the attempt. And so Judy, her heart pounding in her ears, reached out and slowly pulled the door open.

Nothing happened.

No guard leaped out at her or called out an alarm; it was almost anti-climactic to see nothing more than the simple staircase that stretched upwards to the main level. Judy strained her hearing as much as she could, but still heard nothing. She motioned for Nick to follow her, and he did, moving with exaggerated slowness. They crept up the stairs until they were in the basement, but the normal cells were dark and empty and there were no guards present. The next segment, though, was the most dangerous, and the seconds seemed to stretch out as they slowly made their way up the last few stairs. First there were ten steps left, and then eight, and then three, and then suddenly they were standing at the door that led into the main barracks level. "I don't hear anything," Judy said, the words so low she was practically just mouthing them, and Nick actually did mouth his response.

"Me neither."

"Ready?" Judy mouthed, and Nick nodded.

She tried not to think of the danger. She was small and fast, a difficult target to hit and trained in how members of the City Guard thought. Nick was taller, a civilian, and Judy could tell that he was still exhausted from the alchemy he had done in the cell. She hadn't told Nick, not wanting to speak the words out loud, but she had decided that she would do whatever it took to make sure Nick escaped the barracks, even if it cost her her own life. "Three..." Judy mouthed, her paw on the doorknob.

"Two..."

"One..."

She threw open the door and ran, making sure Nick was at her side. She barely paid any attention to what they were running past, more concerned with making sure that she didn't leave Nick behind, but there was no one present. The walls and cold furnishings slipped past, the exit in sight, and Judy put on a burst of speed as she pulled Nick along. Amazingly, impossibly, no one had spotted them; they were going to make it.

They burst into the light of a new day, Judy's heart beating with sudden and fierce joy, but as they ran past the barracks Judy noticed something. Or rather, she noticed what she  _wasn't_  noticing.

The tavern next to the barracks, which had been doing such a bustling business the first time Judy had gone past, was still, all of the tables and chairs out on balconies empty. The streets were totally deserted, feeling uncomfortably wide with not so much as a single pedestrian or merchant fighting for space. There was none of the vibrant pulse that Phoenix had always seemed to have; there was no murmur of distant conversations or creaking of wagons or any of the hundred other sounds that gave a place life.

A bird cried out in the distance, and it almost sounded like a mammal screaming, echoing between buildings in a way that normal life in Phoenix would make impossible. Judy had come to a stop before she had realized it, looking around in stunned silence as Nick did the same. A scrap of paper caught on a low and mournful wind blew past, and the rugs on display at a nearby rug-maker's flapped limply and impossibly loud in the quiet.

Judy turned to Nick, noticing how wide his eyes were, and couldn't help but break the silence. "Where  _is_ everyone?"


	26. Chapter 26

Waking up with his wife's arm around him was one of those simple pleasures Bogo hadn't even realized he missed until he had it again. He had fallen asleep nearly the instant his head touched the cot, but when he awoke he felt refreshed in a way he never had before on the occasions he had previously used the cot. It was even more cramped than it usually was, with Maria's warm presence at his side, but whereas the cot had always been supremely uncomfortable before he found it as soothing and as difficult to get out of as his bed back home. "Back to work?" she murmured, her lips and breath tickling his ear.

Bogo sighed as Maria slowly ran her arm down from his shoulder to his waist, relishing the sensation of her fingers against him. She must have stayed awake the entire time he slept; she had always been able to show how much she loved him even without a single word. "Back to work," he agreed, slowly rolling himself into a sitting position on the side of the cot.

It wasn't easy, considering how narrow the cot was; they had both been on their sides and wouldn't have fit otherwise. But once he was sitting Maria moved to sit at his side, casually looping her arm around his shoulder. "You're not as young as you used to be," she said, "You can't keep pushing yourself so hard."

It was odd, hearing a thought that had run through his head with increasing frequency coming out of his wife's mouth, but Bogo simply grunted. "The faster I get through this the sooner my retirement goes through," he said, and Maria smiled at him.

He had mentioned his upcoming forced retirement from the position of Captain General, but her response was still teasing. "What'll I do, what with you brooding around the house all day?" she asked, and her smile widened, "Perhaps you could become my assistant. See if calves are any easier to deal with than the Queen's Council."

Bogo felt a thin smile coming across his own face. "The calves  _are_  probably better behaved," he said, and Maria gave him a playful shove.

"You already made that joke," she said.

"Who said it was a joke?"

She didn't have an immediate response for that, her fingers drifting down his back to start making slow circles. "You've been expecting something like this, even if you didn't know it," she said at last, "Ever since you arrested Tlatoani, you've been on edge."

"Have I?" Bogo asked, but the withering look Maria gave him rivaled the glare he favored incompetent guards with.

He had, of course, not mentioned any of the details of Alfonso's arrest or the lead up to it, taking his responsibility to maintain the City Guard's information and secrecy quite seriously, but Maria was far from foolish and always read the entire newspaper. She knew the details as well as any civilian, perhaps better because of her proximity to him and her ability to read his moods. He had warned the Queen's Council about what the power vacuum left by the shrew's arrest might cause and been almost completely ignored. Until the attempts on the princess's life had started, at least. "You have," Maria said firmly, "I can tell you're worried. Your thoughts are going in circles, aren't they?"

Bogo sighed; sometimes she knew him perhaps too well. "Yes," he admitted, and Maria leaned up against him.

Her plain dress was somewhat rumpled from lying on the cot, and her fur had pressed itself into whorls and clumps that stuck out at odd angles and emphasized the threads of white age had brought. Despite it all, though, he didn't think she had ever been any lovelier than she was in that moment. "When you retire," she began slowly, and her hoof drifted further down his back, "I can think of something else you could do instead of brooding."

Her fingers brushed past the base of his tail, going a little further to the side and down before she squeezed. "What do you think of that?" she whispered, his ear very nearly in her mouth she was so close.

"I think I'll enjoy my retirement," Bogo said, and he gave her a quick kiss as he gently pulled her hoof away from his butt and stood, "But I've got work to do first."

Maria smiled up at him. "You better come home soon, dear," she said as she stood up herself and pulled at her dress to straighten it.

"I will," Bogo said, and he meant the words with all his heart.

Maria stole another kiss on her way out, and Bogo watched her go for a long moment before turning to the washbasin and mirror in the little room. After he was sure that his appearance met his standards, he left his office without a backwards glance. A different pair of guards—who nearly dropped their spears, they snapped to attention so quickly when he opened the replaced door—were waiting outside, and since there was nothing new for them to report Bogo hurried past.

It was more than a little concerning that no word had yet come back from the mammals Bogo had dispatched to find out what had made Phoenix go dark, and Bogo tried to push down the uneasy feeling in his gut. Instinct, if not yet facts, told him that there was some kind of connection between the attempts on the princess's life and what had happened in Phoenix; surely the blood magician who had made the quauhxicallis the two would-be assassins had used somehow tied both events together even if he didn't know how. Still, once he had been admitted to the royal suites for an audience with the queen and the princess alone, he felt as though he was the perfect picture of a Captain General.  _Never let them see you bleed_ , his predecessor had told him once, and it was a lesson he had taken to heart.

"Your majesties," Bogo said respectfully, and the queen airily waved the words and formality away.

"Did you enjoy your nap?" she asked, and Bogo couldn't help but look up in surprise.

"I—" he began, but the queen cut him off, a small smile playing across her face.

"Who do you suppose insisted your wife be allowed in?" the queen asked, "I know how much she means to you—and you to her."

The queen's smile somehow became sad without changing so much as a degree. It was one of those strange ironies of life; the queen had more wealth and power than he could ever dream of holding, but he had something she had lost forever. The prince consort and the princess were Queen Lana's greatest treasures; one of them was already gone and the other was being actively threatened.

"Mrs. Bogo was here?" Princess Isabel asked eagerly, apparently blind to her mother's reaction, "How is she?"

"Well, your majesty," Bogo answered respectfully, and he was grateful for the smooth diversion the princess allowed him.

Although the princess naturally had a whole array of tutors who came from the proper rank of society to educate her, none of them had succeeded at teaching her the basics of math. Maria had, and if it hadn't been for the queen's desire to keep the families of those tutors from complaining she might have made the post permanent. The princess had become rather fond of Maria as a tutor, though, and Bogo wondered if his new rank of nobility would give the two the opportunity to be student and teacher again. It was a nice thought, but he pushed it aside; any dreams of what the future might bring could wait for after the latest crisis was resolved. "I have a proposal," Bogo began slowly, "But I must be sure of something first."

He probably looked mad, carefully going through the royal suites and checking for any eavesdroppers, but his plan was too vulnerable to falling apart if information leaked to be anything less than as thorough as possible. It took nearly half an hour; the queen silently watching the whole time. The princess had started to ask a question before the queen touched her arm and she fell silent, but at last Bogo was satisfied that no one would be able to overhear them. "I think I have a means of finding out who is behind the attempts on the princess's life," Bogo said, and explained his suspicion that one or more of the queen's top advisers was behind the attacks.

Both queen and princess listened attentively, but when he was done the queen seemed simply to be considering his words while the princess looked shocked. "You can't think that one of them is guilty of treason, can you? Of trying to  _kill_ me?" she asked, and her voice trembled with emotion, "Lady Cencerro is like an aunt to me! And I know you don't like Lord Corazón, but he cares  _so_  much about all the citizens of Zootopia. And Lord Cerdo—"

"I've long suspected that someone murdered your father, my dear," the queen interrupted, and her voice was oddly flat.

The queen's face looked as though it could have been carved from stone, her eyes hard. Princess Isabel's mouth opened, and then closed, and then opened again, completely wordlessly. "Papa was murdered?" she choked out, and then she burst into tears.

The queen placed an arm around her daughter, rocking her gently, the stony look gradually leaving her face as she comforted the princess. When at last Isabel was no longer heaving with sobs, she wiped at her puffy red eyes with one paw. In her grief, the princess's chimeric nature was somehow less unusual; the expression of misery Bogo saw was one he had seen echoed across countless faces while on the job. "I have been a fool," Isabel said, her eyes still watery, and the queen shook her head, drawing her closer.

"You have been a lamb," the queen said gently, "And it is not weakness or foolishness to see the best in mammals. Punishing an innocent mammal is a terrible crime, my dear."

Bogo couldn't help but remember that the queen had expected him to torture information out of Alfonso, but he supposed it was the mark of a good parent to try to raise their child to be better than they themselves were. The gods certainly knew that he and Maria had tried, but—Bogo dismissed the memory of his daughter with no small amount of effort. His nap—and seeing his wife—had helped somewhat, but his mind still seemed prone to drift off on random tangents. "A great queen is just," Queen Lana said, but she wasn't looking at Isabel as she spoke.

The queen was looking Bogo dead in the eyes even as she stroked the odd woolly fur atop her daughter's head. "Cruelty and harshness cannot keep control for long, my dear. It would dishonor your father's memory to act otherwise," she said.

The princess nodded slowly. "We cannot act without absolute proof," she said, and Bogo felt his blood run cold.

Certainly he was used to seeing a shadow of the prince consort in the princess's blended features; she was as much a jaguar like her father as she was a sheep like her mother. But as a chimera she was so uniquely herself, completely unlike any other mammal, that it was easy to forget until some small gesture brought one of her parents to mind. The way her tail, shorter though it was, twitched as her father's had. The way she surreptitiously stretched the way her mother did when she got tired of sitting. It had always been little things before, but when the princess spoke it had been as though it  _was_ her father had spoken, the words and intonation a perfect match.

From the way that Queen Lana twitched Bogo was sure that she had experienced a similar reaction. "What do you propose, Lord Bogo?" she asked.

"Whoever is behind the attacks on the princess has made two attempts that we know of, and I suspect has gone to extreme lengths to hide their actions."

"Phoenix, you mean," the princess interrupted, and although her eyes were still puffy from crying they were still sharp and alert as she watched him closely.

Bogo nodded. "I strongly suspect the mastermind has taken action against Phoenix to destroy some kind of evidence linking them to their crime," he said, and the queen nodded thoughtfully.

"And what does that tell you, my dear?" she asked, turning to face her daughter.

Bogo was quite used to the queen taking various, and often unusual, opportunities to teach her daughter some lesson or another, and he thought he understood the logic behind it. It was, after all, the same reason the queen had started bringing her daughter to meetings of the Queen's Council; if Princess Isabel was to someday lead Zootopia she had to understand  _why_ things happened.

The princess frowned, stroking at her jaw. Her tongue poked between her strange mixture of teeth that could tear flesh as easily as they could grind plants as she thought about it. "If there's something to hide," she began slowly, "And they're willing and able to... to destroy a town to do it..."

She glanced anxiously at her mother, as if to see if her analysis was right, and the queen gave her a slow nod. "Then that means that they have power. A lot of it. The sort a member of your council has."

"Indeed," the queen said, although her tone was not quite approving, "I think I know what you're about to suggest, Bogo."

The princess looked between her mother and Bogo; Bogo did not react and neither did the queen. "What?" she asked at last, "What are you suggesting?"

"There have been two attempts on your life so far, your majesty," Bogo replied, "I suspect there will be a third."

It took a moment for the princess to understand the implication, but to her credit at last she did. "You mean to bait them into acting," she said, her eyes wide.

"Yes," Bogo replied, "Feed all three of them different opportunities, and see which one is taken."

"A trap," the queen said, nodding.

"Then of course we must try it!" the princess began eagerly, "We must—"

"A trap with you as the bait," the queen interrupted bluntly, "You would be putting your life in Lord Bogo's hooves."

"I trust him," Princess Isabel said promptly, and Bogo couldn't help but feel a swell of pride at how rapidly the princess had said it, and how obviously she believed it.

"Thank you, Lord Bogo," the queen said, "We will consider it."

"But—" the princess began, and the queen cut her off almost instantly.

"There will only be one chance to try this plan, and three opportunities for you to lose your life," she said sharply, "It may be that all of them are innocent. Or it might be all of them working together. The fish that is reeled in is caught, yes, but the worm on the hook dies with it. And my council is far cleverer than a fish! If this plan fails, they will see through any other such attempt and will know where our suspicions lie."

"They must already know that they're suspected," the princess said, her chin at an obstinate angle, "And—"

"And neither I nor Zootopia could bear your loss," the queen interrupted, her voice low.

"Then we will consider it seriously," the princess said sharply, looking at her mother.

"We shall. You are dismissed, Lord Bogo," the queen said, and Bogo nodded.

In short order, he had left the royal apartments behind, making his way back to his office. The meeting had gone about as well as he had hoped; he suspected that ultimately the queen would leave the decision up to the princess, and he knew the princess would want to go ahead with it. That was, after all, the burden of being a parent. Eventually, your children would make decisions for themselves, and all you could do was hope that they could live with the consequences.

Although he didn't have authorization—not yet, at least—he spent his time considering how best to design the trap. He had held a vague outline in his head, but it would not be enough; he needed something absolute and definitive. It had to be a trap with three triggers, designed so that it was not obvious to the mammals he sought to bait even if they shared information with each other. About two hours later, once he thought he had something that could stand up to all the problems he could foresee, there came a sudden and urgent knocking on his office door. "Captain General!" a breathless voice called through, "There's been news from Phoenix!"

Bogo stood up from his desk so quickly that he knocked half of what had been on it off. He ignored the fallen papers, pens, and books littering his floor and immediately made his way to the door. When he opened it, a slim cheetah in the uniform of a lieutenant saluted him as sharply as he could while his chest heaved like bellows. "Urgent message, sir," the cheetah said, giving him a sealed envelope.

"Excellent work, Lieutenant," Bogo said, even as he broke the seal with one finger and ripped the envelope open.

"Will you have a response, sir?" the cheetah asked, but Bogo barely heard him.

The words on the letter were hastily written, the letters so uneven and blotchy they were difficult to read. Once he had, though, Bogo had to read the message again to be sure he had read it right.

_Lieutenant Colonel Cencerro reports Phoenix invaded by massive barbarian force from beyond the Wall. Civilian losses catastrophic. Bridge to Phoenix destroyed to prevent further progress. Cannot hold. Cencerro en route with survivors._

Bogo slumped against the wall outside his office; he didn't seem to be able to get enough air into his lungs and the corridor seemed to spin around him. It should have been impossible, but the words remained obdurately on the page, harshly black against white. The last time Zootopia had been invaded by mammals from beyond the Wall, the ruling dynasty had been overthrown and the city entirely remade in the image of the victors. But the Oveja dynasty, which the queen and the princess were the most recent members of, had brought peace and prosperity, putting an end to the brutal and violent rule of the emperors. Somehow, Bogo doubted that the latest invaders would be anywhere near as benevolent. The torcs might slow the barbarians down, but he thought the attempts on the princess's life were proof that someone was betraying the city. It seemed impossible that the invasion wasn't linked to the assassination attempts, and Bogo looked down at the letter again.

He had all but crushed it between his hooves, but he could still read it. Lieutenant Colonel Cencerro being en route with survivors meant something. It meant that his trap didn't need  _three_  triggers. It needed four.

* * *

**Author's Notes:**

There really wasn't too much for me to say in terms of author's notes last chapter, and I liked the more dramatic break, so I'm including them here.

Nick transmuted the cell bars from diamond into graphite. Both are arrangements of carbon atoms, but graphite is significantly weaker, allowing it to be easily broken. In his bout with Judy, he was able to use the wind and earth as focuses, but lacks them either in the cell, explaining his difficulty performing the transmutations. Drawing out the patterns with his own blood seemed a simple enough way to do it, lacking other options.

In this chapter, we learn that Bogo is the little spoon when he and his wife share a bed. Not exactly an Earth-shattering detail, but the bigger person doesn't always have to be the big spoon!

Bogo did indeed warn the Queen's Council that Alfonso's arrest left a power vacuum all the way back in chapter 2, and he did make a joke about nobles being more unruly than children in chapter 24.

Bogo's own daughter has been mentioned only briefly, such as in chapter 10, but it is something he has in common with both the queen and Alfonso. In chapter 14, the queen's expectation that Bogo would use torture was indicated; I figured that this wasn't something that Bogo would let go. The prince consort did use the words "absolute proof" in chapter 6 when Bogo is remembering his terrible death.

As always, thanks for reading! If you're so inclined as to leave a comment, I'd love to know what you thought.


	27. Chapter 27

"Are you expecting to find a book labeled 'Secret Evil Plan, Do Not Read'?" Nick asked.

They were searching Cencerro's office; after the eerie stillness of the streets of Phoenix Nick hadn't taken much convincing to go back into the barracks. His tone as he asked the question sounded, to Judy's ears, as though he was trying to be casual and not quite succeeding. There was a tense undercurrent in his voice; he sounded on the edge between worry and panic.

Although Judy herself wasn't afraid, she couldn't help but wonder if his reaction was the right one; the situation they had found themselves in was far more bizarre than anything she could have imagined. "The more information we can take to the captain general, the better," Judy replied as she went through the drawers of Cencerro's desk.

Everything was as perfectly organized as his office suggested that it would be; the drawer Judy was pawing through had nearly a decade's worth of operating budgets filled with dense and neatly written columns of numbers and descriptions. "If he won't take a bunny guard and a fox alchemist at their word, you mean," Nick replied.

He was looking through the more recent files that had been stacked with an almost geometric precision atop Cencerro's desk, but from his expression Judy could tell he hadn't found anything of interest as she looked up sharply from her own work. "Why wouldn't Bogo believe us?" she asked, and the smile Nick gave her was somehow sad.

"Oh, Carrots," he said, about turning the words into a sigh, "You really are too pure for this world, aren't you?"

His tone wasn't nearly as mocking as his words seemed like they should be; when he continued he sounded positively melancholy. "If it comes down to the word of a rookie—a  _bunny_ rookie—against the head of the Phoenix City Guard, do you really think he'd accept our side? We'd just end up in cells that'd be a tiny bit more difficult to get out of."

Judy wanted to be able to voice a protest but couldn't. She had seen Bogo speak once before, but had never had a conversation with him. Still, the buffalo had seemed to all but radiate competence and authority. If anyone could see through whatever web of lies Cencerro would spin, she had to believe it would be the captain general. And then, before her ears had the chance to so much as droop an inch, they suddenly shot up again as something occurred to her: she might not know what Cencerro's plan was, but she did know at least one of his lies. "If Cencerro is going to tell him that I'm dead, us showing up would be proof that he's lying," Judy said, "Bogo would have to believe us then."

Nick scratched at the side of his muzzle idly. "Unless he was lying about planning on telling that lie," Nick said, "Criminals can lie, you know."

Judy couldn't help but laugh, and Nick cocked his head to the side in apparent puzzlement. "I'm sorry," Judy said, trying to get herself under control, "It's just that— It's just—"

It took her a moment before she could get the words out. "Cencerro said the same thing about  _you_ , right here in this office."

Nick suddenly grinned, and it lit up his whole face. His ears, which had been at least partially pressed back the entire time since they had burst out onto the empty streets of Phoenix, stood up again, and his tail made a single sweep. "He said that about  _me_?" Nick asked, and pressed a paw to his chest, his fingers elegantly tented to make it a positively foppish gesture, "I'm going to enjoy holding that over his head. Assuming we get out of this mess."

His expression darkened again, and Judy reached up to give his paw a quick squeeze. "We will," she said firmly.

"Who am I to argue with you?" Nick asked, and there was a smile in his voice as he went back to looking through the files on top of Cencerro's desk.

Judy had a small smile of her own as she returned to the thick ledgers she was looking through, which was good since they were about the most tedious documents she had ever seen. Her parents had insisted on showing all of their kits how the Totchli Barony kept track of its expenses and profits so she was at least somewhat familiar with accounting practices, but she had never been particularly interested in it. If Cencerro had been cooking the books as part of whatever he had been planning, she wasn't sure that she would have been able to spot it unless he had been exceptionally sloppy.

That, unfortunately, did not seem to be the case; every thick ledger was full of almost impossibly precise entries. Still, it was also possible that Cencerro had hidden something in one of the books, and Judy kept up her methodical search. The next ten minutes passed in silence, and Judy was just beginning to think that her idea was only wasting precious time that they could have used for travel when she opened the ledger that had been at the very back of the drawer. Although it had the same bland black cover as all the others, it didn't have a year written on the front. A spark of excitement shot up her spine as she flipped it open and saw that a number of pages had been precisely cut out of the front. The page that had become the first one had a neat grid of letters on it, but unlike the other ledgers it didn't look like a balance sheet. Judy blinked to clear her eyes, not sure at first if she wasn't looking at it right, but the contents of the ledger didn't look like anything. The letters filling the grid formed complete gibberish whether she tried reading it forwards or backwards, up or down, or even diagonally. Judy flipped through the remaining pages and saw that while every page looked to be  _unique_ nonsense, the way they were laid out was the same.

Each page only had text on one side, and the grids of seemingly random letters each had the same number of columns and rows. At the top of each page, above the grid, was a single number that Judy supposed were page numbers. She suddenly realized what the book was and called out. "Nick, look at this!"

Judy heaved the book from where she had been paging through it on the floor to the top of Cencerro's desk. Nick raised an eyebrow at the force with which she set the book down, but looked over the first page. "It's in code," he said, after a moment's examination, "Which, unless you happen to have a cipher—"

"No, no, don't you see?" Judy interrupted, gesturing forcefully at the book, "All the pages are like this. It's not  _in_ code, it  _is_ the code!"

The angle Nick's head was cocked at started to become more extreme, and Judy hastily launched into an explanation. "We learned about this in the academy. Two mammals each have identical books of random letters. You add the letters of the message you want to send to the first page of the book that hasn't been used yet. Then the mammal getting the message subtracts the letters in their book from the letters in the message. See, the pages are numbered so they can say which page to use, and they destroy the pages that have been used. That's why this book is missing a bunch of pages from the beginning."

Judy smiled at Nick triumphantly as she caught her breath; she had barely paused between sentences and found herself needing to take in a large lungful of air. To Nick's credit, he seemed to instantly grasp the point she was making. "Very clever. So maybe we can't find the messages Cencerro was sending or receiving," Nick began slowly, "But someone else is going to have a book identical to this one."

"Exactly!" Judy said, "And  _that_ means we'll know who he was conspiring with!"

They both looked at each other for a long moment. "Unless they were more careful than Cencerro and destroyed their book," Nick said, but he carefully closed the book and set it aside.

"It's worth looking into," Judy said, "For all we know, Bogo already has a bunch of suspects under arrest who haven't had the chance to destroy the evidence yet."

"It's possible," Nick agreed, "But I'm not sure we'll find anything else here."

It didn't take very much searching before Judy agreed that Nick was right. After they had both thoroughly searched Cencerro's office without finding anything else worth paying attention to, though, Judy had them make one more stop in the barracks. As she had hoped, everything that they had been carrying had been neatly locked up exactly where she thought it would be. Considering the circumstances he had made it under, the spear Nick had made her in the cell was a decent weapon, but she much preferred to have her spear back and the sword Nick had made her at her waist. If Nick understood the significance of her wearing it with the rest of the uniform she carefully reassembled he didn't comment on it.

Still, he was busy changing out of his rather tattered robes into an outfit he pulled from his bag that looked much the same as the one he had traveled in. It meant he had left her alone in the evidence room while he changed in the corridor outside, and it also meant that he hadn't seen her reaction to coming across the little golden carrot again. Judy had squeezed it in her paw, savoring the heavy solidity of the ornament, before sliding it into her pocket. It seemed as though it had been ages ago that he had given it to her, and everything had changed since then. They might be the only two mammals able to stop whatever Cencerro was planning, and Judy vowed that no matter what else happened she would make sure that Nick was safe.

"Ready to go?" Nick asked, leaning around the doorway to the evidence room with a remarkable casualness.

The evidence room itself was identical to how other barracks were set up; it wasn't much more than a series of variously-sized drawers set into the walls, with the harsh glare of an un-shielded alchemical torch embedded in the ceiling providing light. Even under such unflattering light, which completely banished shadows and made most mammals seem sickly and washed-out, Nick looked...

Judy wasn't sure she could put a finger on it; without the ornamented robes he had been wearing he certainly didn't look like the textbook-standard image of an alchemist, and even if he had been wearing his un-ornamented torc (which he wasn't) it wouldn't have quite made him look like a merchant. He looked like himself, which was a rather weak description but was about the best that Judy could come up with. His red-orange fur positively glowed, and while Judy thought she saw a shadow of worry on his face he had his usual smirk affixed.

"Ready," Judy answered, and they set off for the bridge that led out of Phoenix.

Although Judy would have liked to simply head out of town as quickly as possible, Nick forced her to walk slowly. There was still no sign of anyone on the street outside the barracks, but as they passed the tavern next door Nick pointed out something she hadn't noticed before. The tavern had a number of balconies and patios with tables and chairs on them, and at a number of tables there were plates of half-eaten food. No flies had started to swarm the remains, but the vegetables were starting to look brown and wilted and a half-eaten piece of fish looked somewhat fuzzy. "It's like everyone just got up and left," Nick observed quietly, and Judy nodded.

"Could an alchemist have, you know..." Judy trailed off, vaguely making the shape of an explosion with her paws.

"Transmuted everyone into gas or something?" Nick asked, his voice no louder than before.

Judy nodded again, and Nick shrugged. "I don't think so. It'd be like a mouse trying to carry an elephant, trying to control an alchemical reaction the size of Phoenix," he said, but his words weren't nearly as dismissive as she had hoped they would be.

His tone had been thoughtful, and Judy got the sense it was a question he had asked himself. "I know  _I_ couldn't do it, but maybe they teach master alchemists something besides the secret of making a philosopher's stone," Nick said, and he smiled thinly, "Alchemists do love their secrets."

"So I've seen," Judy said, and Nick's smile widened slightly.

"My mystery is all a part of my charm," he said lightly, "Mammals don't like it if they get the sense that alchemists aren't wise and powerful beyond mortal reckoning. Bad for business, you see."

He was still slowly scanning the street, his ears swiveling in all directions as he seemed to be anticipating an ambush, but Judy appreciated the fact that even under the circumstances he was able to make his little jokes. Perhaps it was just his way of dealing with his fear, but it was better than raw panic. "What about that book?" Judy asked, as they turned a corner onto a street that looked little different than the one they had just left, "Was there something in that Golden Codex that could have done this?"

As before, there were no mammals present, but there were the signs of them. An abandoned cart piled high with stacks of newspapers tied together with twine, some of which flapped weakly in the wind where the knots had been poorly done, rested on one side of the street. The door to a bakery rattled on its hinges in the same wind, and when the door gusted open Judy saw a neatly wrapped loaf of bread on the counter with a short stack of coins to its side. It really did look as though everyone in Phoenix had simply disintegrated no matter what Nick said. He had previously as much as admitted that the masters of the Alchemist Guild knew things he did not, though, and Judy wondered if it had been a coincidence that Cencerro had arrested Nick during the attempt to buy the Golden Codex.

"Excellent question, Carrots, but as far as  _I_ know, no one knows," Nick said.

Before Judy could ask the obvious question as to how he knew that, Nick continued. "It is a book of alchemy, but it was written hundreds of years ago. Maybe in code, maybe in a lost language, but as far as I know no one alive can read any of the codices."

Judy frowned. "How do you know it's a book of alchemy if no one can read it?" she asked.

"All of the old codices have an ouroboros on their covers and the pages are full of complicated diagrams. But they don't look like modern alchemy tables and no one can read the text so it's anyone's guess what they're trying to say. Maybe they're actually cookbooks," Nick said with a shrug.

"And you thought you could crack the mystery?" Judy asked, and Nick shrugged again.

"What can I say?" he said, "I am an extremely clever fox—if you'll forgive the modesty."

Judy laughed, and Nick clutched at his chest as though she had wounded him. "Most of those old codices just make a treasure hunter a few coins and then go right into the collection of some minor noble who thinks having books he can't read makes him look respectable," Nick said, "But I thought I'd see if I could make anything out of it."

Judy had, in fact, heard of other minor nobles in the Middle Baronies engaging in what her father dismissively called "putting on airs" by assembling collections of artifacts from earlier eras of Zootopia's history. So far as Judy knew, most of those nobles knew very little about their collections; her uncle had once told her the amusing if somewhat implausible story of a near-sighted goat lord who had been tricked into buying what he had been assured was an antique vase but was actually a relatively new chamber pot. The mammal who had swindled that goat had been, or so the story went, a fox, and Judy looked at Nick. "Did you know any of those nobles?" she asked.

She didn't want to think of Nick as a swindler, especially in light of her lapse in judgement when he had been innocently helping that shrew and her bird, but she had the awful feeling that if she ever took Nick home to the Totchli Barony that it was the sort of thing her family might assume about him. Not that there was a reason to bring him to Totchli Barony, of course, although it would be nice to get to show him around and maybe—"There aren't too many nobles who want to do business with a fox," Nick said, interrupting her thoughts.

"I'm a noble," Judy blurted, the words out of her mouth before she could think about them.

"A really minor one, and I'm not going to inherit the barony but—" she continued, unable to stop the flow of words until Nick interrupted.

"You should have mentioned it earlier, Lady Carrots," he said, putting a posh accent on the words, "I'll keep that in mind."

"Please don't call me that," Judy said, and Nick's only response was that his smile widened a degree.

They had passed through more of Phoenix's eerily quiet streets, but before turning the corner Nick suddenly threw out a paw and stopped her. "The bridge is around this corner," he said in a low whisper.

Judy nodded, straining her ears. The wind was blowing the wrong way, from beyond the wall and towards the center of Zootopia, but when the gust stopped Judy froze. "Do you hear that?" she asked, and when Nick shook his head Judy carefully got on all fours.

She cautiously peeked around the corner and almost instantly pulled her head back. "The bridge is gone," she hissed, and Nick's eyes widened in surprise.

"Gone?" he asked, "What do you mean, gone?"

The massive bridge that connected Phoenix to the rest of the Outer Baronies wasn't as elaborate as the Cozamalotl Bridge, but it had seemed especially solid. Where before there had been a sturdy bridge of white stone, it looked as though a giant playing with enormous blocks had destroyed their creation. There was now a massive chasm between either side of the bridge, the borders on either end irregular where blocks must have fallen into the gorge after the bridge was split. "Someone destroyed it," Judy said, which seemed to be the simplest way of getting the point across, "There's an army on the other side."

"An army?" Nick asked, his voice almost too loud, and they both looked around for a second after he spoke to see if there was any indication that he had been heard.

It had been what Judy had heard; the flapping of banners and the creak of armor, and when Nick risked a quick look of his own Judy saw from his expression that she hadn't been imagining it. "That's an army," Nick said, pointing at the corner of the building they were hiding behind.

The disbelief was evident in his voice; Judy hadn't recognized the banners being flown by the mammals, and they were too far away to get a sense of the uniforms that the mammals were wearing. But there had to be thousands of them, mammals of all different sizes standing watch as though they were waiting for an opposing army to come meet them. If Judy was remembering the military history that had been drilled into her at the academy correctly—and she saw no reason to think she wasn't—it had been centuries since an opposing army had marched into Zootopia. "Do you think they're from beyond the Wall?" Judy asked, and Nick's shrug was helplessly expressive.

"I know that banner," Nick replied.

The banners the mammals had been carrying were black with a curious yellow sigil on them; it might have been a crude representation of a lightning bolt, but Judy didn't know it. She knew she had the sigils of all the existing noble houses memorized, and she stared at Nick. "That was Oztoyehuatl's sigil," he said, and the wonder in his voice was obvious.

"Do you know what that means?" Judy asked.

"No. Do you?"

"No."

They both fell silent, Judy turning the idea over and over in her mind. Was it possible that Oztoyehuatl had somehow survived the punishment for his treason all those centuries ago? He couldn't possibly still be alive, of course, but what if he had fled beyond the wall, his descendants amassing an army in preparation for revenge? Or perhaps it was someone simply using Oztoyehuatl's banner for the symbolism; the fox had tried to overthrow the royal family.

"There's no way we're getting past an army," Nick said, "I could fix the bridge well enough for us to cross, but there's no point if there's an army waiting for us."

Judy chewed at her lip. There had to be another way to get out of Phoenix; it had become more important than ever to get a warning to the captain general. "What if we cross at a different point?" Judy asked, but Nick shook his head.

"We'd be seen no matter where we do it," he said.

She thought he was right; the way that Phoenix was nestled in the roughly triangular section formed by the Y-shaped fissure that surrounded it, it was easy for mammals standing at the fork of the fissure to see all of it. Judy couldn't see how far around the fissure the army ranged, but they'd be horribly vulnerable while Nick made a bridge with alchemy and they crossed.

Nick suddenly sighed, and Judy looked up at him. "I know how we can cross," Nick said, but he didn't look particularly happy about it, "I hate the idea, but—"

"But what?" Judy interrupted, "How can we get across without being seen?"

"We're going to go down. We'll go through what's left of Quimichpatlan Barony."

* * *

**Author's Notes:**

Cencerro did tell Judy, in chapter 23, that he planned on telling her parents that she died a hero, and here Judy makes the assumption that he would first tell this lie to Bogo. In chapter 15, Cencerro did warn Judy that criminals can lie and was speaking about Nick.

In this chapter, Judy theorizes that the book she found in Cencerro's desk is a one-time pad, to use the proper cryptology term, and the explanation in the chapter matches up the use of real one-time pads. The idea is simple: two or more parties who wish to send secret messages to each other both have identical pads containing identical sequences of randomly generated numbers. To send a message, you can add the letters of your message to the corresponding letters of the one-time pad (for example, if the first letter of your message is A and the first letter of the one-time pad is C, you would add A+C (1+3) and have D (4) as the letter in the coded message. The recipient then subtracts the one-time pad from the encoded text to get the message.

The advantage of one-time pads is that, if proper security measures are taken to ensure that pages of the one-time pad are not reused, that no one else besides the intended senders and recipients has a copy of the one-time pad, and that the sequence of random letters is truly random, they are impossible to crack. Of course, that's a significant number of caveats that I've listed, but if you can meet the requirements then the message is truly secure. One-time pads were first invented in 1882, but it's one of those methods that could theoretically have been invented at any time. Considering that this is a fairly out-there AU, I didn't think it out of place.

The special significance of Judy wearing the sabre Nick made her is a reference back to chapter 13, when Judy notes that only members of the City Guard at the rank of captain or higher have the privilege of carrying swords as part of their uniform.

When Quimichpatlan Barony was first mentioned, a number of readers mentioned that they wanted to see for themselves what it was like down there, what with the ruins and the horrible monsters. Well, I won't spoil what's  _actually_ down there, but you will indeed get your wish!

As always, thanks for reading! If you're so inclined as to comment, I'd love to know what you think.


	28. Chapter 28

Bogo had only paused long enough to tell the messenger—in a much brusquer tone than he would have used under any other circumstances—to wait outside his office for a response before setting off for the royal suites as quickly as he could go. Before he had the chance to get so much as twenty feet down the corridor, however, he was accosted by a familiar shrill and squeaky voice. "Captain General!" came the voice of the court alchemist Tomas from somewhere around knee-height.

Bogo looked down and saw the diminutive alchemist standing atop the platform created by his box of supplies, being carried at the moment by an otter in the uniform of a City Guard lieutenant. The otter, to her credit, had started chasing after Bogo as quickly as her stubby little legs and almost waddling gait would let her; she was nearly as ungainly on dry land as she would be acrobatic and agile in water and couldn't keep up. With barely a moment's hesitation Bogo simply snatched up Tomas's box and the mouse, not even breaking his stride. "Captain General!" Tomas squeaked, his voice somehow rising even higher in his outrage, "You may be in a hurry but—"

The fat little mouse had barely managed to hold onto the railing built into the box's lid, and he glared up at Bogo indignantly. "Come collect him at the lift to the queen's rooms," Bogo called over his shoulder at the shocked-looking otter, "He and I need to talk first."

If Tomas had been indignant before, he became all but incandescent with rage at Bogo daring to ignore him; he shook one tiny fist and began saying, "How dare you—"

Bogo cut him off, completely unsympathetic to the alchemist's desire to be treated with the appropriate courtesy; it suddenly occurred to him that as a fellow lord he could be as rude as he wanted. The temptation to say exactly how he felt about the pompous alchemist beckoned to Bogo strongly, but he had never been one to let his personal desires overcome his devotion to his duty. "Time is short," Bogo snapped, "I apologize for not following protocol, but every minute counts now. I need you to tell me everything you know."

He had assumed that the alchemist had been coming to him to report what he knew about the mysterious figure that Wilfrido, the self-declared Duke of Quauhxicallis, claimed to have seen. If Tomas had been planning on pestering Bogo about something completely unrelated, the mouse would find how Bogo set him down even more unceremonious than how he had been picked up. When Tomas simply goggled at him, clinging to the railing of his box for balance as Bogo ran as quickly as he could, Bogo tried appealing to his considerable pride. "What you can tell me might mean the safety of the kingdom," Bogo said, and that at least seemed to unstick Tomas's tongue.

"Well," Tomas began, letting go of the railing for a moment to straighten his richly embroidered robes before quickly grabbing for it again, "Alchemy certainly could be used to hide a mammal's face. You see, in the first stage of transmutation, somewhat crudely referred to as 'blackening' by less scholarly—"

Bogo grunted, and Tomas hastily dropped his lecture. "An alchemist could wear a mask and hold it in the first stage of transmutation, yes," he said, "With a hood up and the mask absorbing all light, it would certainly make them look faceless."

"How good of an alchemist would they have to be?" Bogo asked; he found himself thankful that he had never neglected his exercises even once ascending to his current rank, or his progress through the labyrinth of corridors that made up the palace would have been much slower.

"Oh, reasonably skilled, I should say, to be able to do it for several minutes," Tomas said, "Teaching apprentice alchemists to develop the focus needed for lengthy transmutations is never easy. I assume, of course, that this mysterious mammal had external focuses hidden on his or her body; even a master would have difficulty otherwise."

Bogo nodded as he kept running. Although he knew very little about alchemy, he did know that alchemists used fire, wind, dirt, and water as focuses to somehow assist in their transmutations. How or why it worked was not only beyond him, but not particularly interesting; he simply didn't care how alchemy worked so long as it helped develop the profile of the mammal involved.

"And the voice?" Bogo asked.

To his great surprise, Tomas actually laughed, and managed to sound nearly as condescending as ever as he did. "I doubt that was anything more complex than a puppeteer's trick," Tomas said, "Did you never watch a puppet show when you were young?"

_There_  was that familiar condescension he had expected from the alchemist. "No," Bogo said; he had never had the time for anything quite so frivolous.

"It's called a swazzle," Tomas said, all but preening smugly with his own cleverness, "Not much more than a reed and a strip of metal. There's some trick to holding it in your mouth and speaking through it, you see, and I'm sure this  _weasel_  was so frightened of the little alchemy trick this mammal did that—"

Tomas's face had wrinkled with distaste as he spoke Wilfrido's species, and his voice somehow managed to be haughtier than usual as he spoke of the mammal daring to be terrified by a disturbing stranger without a face. Bogo felt absolutely no compunction about interrupting yet again; he was sure his impatience shone through as he said, "Yes, his mind did the rest. So it was definitely an alchemist?"

"If the story wasn't entirely made up," Tomas sniffed, obviously miffed at having been interrupted.

Bogo doubted that it was. Considering how jealously alchemists guarded the secrets of their abilities, he doubted Wilfrido had the imagination to come up with something an actual alchemist would consider plausible. Besides, his soldiers had in fact found a platinum piece in Wilfrido's shop; if that wasn't proof that the story was the truth, he didn't know what was. There was only one more question he had for Tomas, and it was one he didn't have much hope of getting an answer to. "Have you heard of an alchemist named Nicholas of the Middle Baronies?" Bogo asked, and for the first time since he had picked up Tomas he had to force the words in between gasps for breath; the palace was too large to easily run through.

Tomas considered the question thoughtfully for a moment, and Bogo prodded him on. "A fox?"

"A fox?" Tomas repeated, skepticism tinging his voice, "It's a sorry truth that predators lack the discipline to master alchemy, Captain General."

"He's registered with the kingdom as an alchemist," Bogo managed to force out.

"A charlatan, then," Tomas sniffed, "Doubtlessly he tricked whoever was administering the exam."

"Completed contracts," Bogo said, using as few words as possible as he did his best to keep up his rapid pace.

Tomas's eyes suddenly widened. "You mean the one who calls himself Nick? He's a scavenger, that's all. He might know the basics—the absolute basics, even the slowest-witted apprentice would outshine him—but he certainly isn't a  _master_  alchemist. There have been a few complaints about a fox stealing contracts, but nothing that would take any great skill I can assure you."

Bogo simply grunted. Considering that Tomas had rapidly changed his story the instant he had pointed out that the fox had somehow managed to complete contracts, Bogo had the suspicion that this Nicholas was something of an embarrassment to the proud reputation of the Alchemist Guild. He mentally filed that information away; a fox would have been the right height for the mammal Wilfrido had described, and Bogo supposed that if it was down to a fox who was also an alchemist there couldn't be any besides Nicholas. Tomas seemed to pick up on how Bogo had read him, because he hastily added, "He's a trivial annoyance at best, Captain General. Really, hardly even worth mentioning."

Bogo had, at last, reached the lift that would take him the rest of the way to the royal suites; he had no desire to take the stairs after a sprint that might not have quite done his twenty-year-old self proud but was still better than what most mammals his age could manage. "Thank you," he gasped as he forced the box the alchemist stood on into the surprised paws of one of the guards standing on either side of the lift's door, "Lieutenant here soon."

Bogo managed to last until the lift's doors were closed before he leaned over, hooves on his knees, and sucked in air as quickly as he could.

* * *

The ride in the lift was just long enough for Bogo to regain his composure, and when he strode stiffly into the royal suites the queen was mercifully alone. There was no doubt that he would have to tell the other members of the Queen's Council what he had learned, but it was his strong desire to push off that tedious task until after the queen knew. Bogo made his report as efficiently as possible, including what he had just learned from Tomas, and waited as the queen considered the information.

"I am the first to know?" she asked at last.

"Yes, your majesty," Bogo said, "We're the only two in the Inner Baronies who know what the message said."

There was another long silence, the queen getting up from her seat and beginning to pace her study. "What's your opinion of Lieutenant Colonel Diego Cencerro?" she asked suddenly.

"I've met him twice, your majesty, but I did not appoint him to his post."

"Yes, yes, I appointed him as a favor to Lady Cencerro," the queen said, waving her hoof impatiently, "But I asked what your opinion of him was."

Bogo considered the question a moment. "He's been a reliable officer, your majesty. Absolutely by the book, in absolutely everything he does. His reports are concise and clear, and if he had any aspirations of taking my job he had the good grace not to show it."

"You don't like him."

It wasn't a question. "No, your majesty. He's..." Bogo said, but he hesitated, unsure of how to finish the thought.

Despite her earlier and obvious impatience, Queen Lana didn't interject anything, apparently content to let Bogo work it out for himself. "He's not outstanding in any way," Bogo said at last, "He graduated at the top of his class, and he's had an unblemished record ever since. Not so much as a disciplinary action."

"As I recall from when I appointed you as my captain general, you had a few of those yourself," the queen observed dryly, "Why didn't his record didn't strike you as outstanding?"

"The same reason the latest top cadet from the academy doesn't strike me as outstanding, your majesty," Bogo said.

It was a credit to the attention that the queen paid to the state of affairs of the City Guard that her answer was nearly instantaneous. "The rabbit, you mean?"

"Yes," Bogo said, nodding his head, "Both of them excelled at everything the academy teaches and tests cadets on. But neither one of them made so much as a single friend among their fellow cadets."

"Ah," the queen said, "What the academy  _doesn't_  teach or test cadets on."

"The academy is supposed to build bonds between the cadets," Bogo said, "Give them mammals who understand their struggles, give them the opportunity to receive help and give it. But neither Diego Cencerro nor Judy Totchli made any such attempts. Perhaps they succeeded on their own merits, but they didn't so much as lift a finger to help their fellows."

"You might be doing them a disservice," the queen said, "From what I've heard, mammals don't always treat students doing better than them with much respect. Ostracizing someone can be a powerful bonding experience for everyone else."

"Perhaps," Bogo allowed, "But in light of what we know, I wonder how coincidental it is that the two of them were in Phoenix at the same time as each other, in the company of the kingdom's one and only fox alchemist."

"If Diego Cencerro is a suspect, then Lady Cencerro is as well," the queen said, and Bogo nodded.

"I don't know how well the two of them get along, but they are family," he said.

"Cousins," the queen said with a sigh, "And I thought I'd trust Alba with my life."

The queen was silent a long moment, and then she spoke again. "Barbarians at the gate," she said, "If we wait until we're absolutely positive that the lieutenant colonel is telling the truth, there's no telling what they might be able to do if the threat is real. And if we act now, we might be sending the City Guard into a trap. Certainly taking Phoenix out of the equation was no simple task, whether it was by barbarians or by Cencerro."

Bogo cleared his throat. "I would disagree, your majesty. It's been centuries since the City Guard has truly fought as an army. We learn the tactics and we practice with the weapons, but no one alive has the practical experience to fight an opposing army. Even the number of mammals who have experienced fighting without torcs is limited to ones who have rotated through Phoenix, and that's largely limited to arresting drunks. If barbarians truly did attack, they might have found Phoenix an easy target."

"An easy target," the queen repeated, but she didn't sound as though she was disagreeing with his assessment.

Any justification Bogo could have given would have sounded particularly weak. Blaming centuries of peace for a lack of preparation against external threats would have just showed off what was increasingly looking like appalling planning. "How do you wish to proceed, your majesty? Shall I assemble your council?" Bogo asked; there didn't seem to be much he could do other than continue plowing ahead.

"My council, which you suspect contains at least one traitor," the queen replied mildly, "Right now I would prefer your judgement, Lord Bogo."

"I recommend that I lead a force to verify and engage the barbarians if necessary. A force large enough to be successful, but not so large as to leave the Inner and Middle Baronies undefended," Bogo said crisply.

It would be a delicate juggling act; considering that three of his prime suspects had volunteered members of the personal guard to serve with the City Guard, he didn't want to leave them near the palace. Alternatively, he didn't want them to be able to ambush the actual City Guard once it was afield and no one could report it. Still, compared to the problems he normally dealt with, it didn't seem insurmountable, although he did wish he could be in two places at once. The idea of leaving the palace gave him a deeply uneasy feeling, but so did the idea of an enemy army burrowing into the Outer Baronies like a swarm of ticks that would become impossible to dislodge.

"You never knew my father, did you Lord Bogo?" the queen asked suddenly, apparently changing the topic.

"No, your majesty."

"Ah," the queen said, nodding her head, "I suppose you wouldn't, although I doubt you would have gotten along with him. When I was, oh, perhaps twelve or thirteen, I attended the doings in court, much as Isabel does now. Once, a particularly proud lord, in the midst of supplicating my father, passed flatulence. He was terribly embarrassed, of course, and fled the chamber immediately. In his humiliation, he banished himself to the Middle Baronies for a full year before daring to show his face in court again. When my father saw this worthy mammal again, do you know what he said?"

"I cannot guess, your majesty."

"He said," the queen began, and a slight smile teased at her mouth, "'Why, Lord Buey, it appears you've drifted back on the wind after ever so long. Please remind me, is there some slight you have caused the throne you wish to clear the air about?'"

"Very amusing, your majesty," Bogo replied, completely deadpan.

"I  _did_ say that you likely would not have gotten along with him. I've heard he was different when he still had my mother, but I never had the opportunity to know that version of my father."

Bogo nodded. Despite what some mammals thought, he did have a sense of humor, just not a juvenile one. He had known many mammals in the City Guard who coped with the demands of the job with humor of all sorts, from groan-inducing wordplay to childish jokes to vulgar stories. The queen rarely spoke of either of her parents, both of them long-dead, but he knew that the queen had never known her mother, the ewe having died giving birth. Considering the demands that King Raul XVI had been under, it was perhaps not surprising that he had dealt with circumstances as best he could. And, in turn, Bogo could not guess at the full extent of the impact that her father had held. If King Raul had remarried, would Queen Lana have been so adamantly opposed to doing so herself? It was not a question he would have ever dared to ask, but it was impossible not to wonder. "I wished you to have the measure of him before I tell you this next story," the queen continued.

"When I was very young, no more than five or six, it was rare for me to see much of my father. He was very busy, you see, and many days I did not see him at all. When I did in the summer, when the days were longest, it was not until the sun was about to set that he would leave his royal duties and tend to me. He had a joke he was rather fond of; he would come up to me and say, "'Lenny, I think it's about time for the sun to go down, don't you? Some of our kingdom's good mammals need to sleep and others need to wake. Come, help me pull it from the sky.' He'd make a big production of it, pretending to pull on an invisible rope with all his might, cajoling me to pull harder, and the sun  _would_ go down."

There was a pause, and when the queen turned to look at Bogo all traces of a smile had gone from her face. "Saying a thing does not make it true, Lord Bogo. Should someone declare themselves Emperor in my absence, it will not be so without the support of my subjects."

"Your absence, your majesty?" Bogo asked, but there was a sinking feeling in his chest.

He had realized the point that the queen was getting to; she had undermined one of his most persuasive arguments before he could even voice it. "Yes, my absence," Queen Lana said, and brought her hooves together briskly, "It is a rather simple problem. There is no one you trust to lead an army afield to deal with the threat of these 'barbarians,' but there is also no one else you—or I, I must say—trust to protect the princess should you leave to lead the army yourself. Therefore, there is only one solution. The princess and I shall accompany you, as shall  _all_ my advisers and their soldiers."

Bogo repressed a sigh. The queen had just undermined his other major argument; if he could not make her stay out of fear of a coup in her absence or in the name of the safety of the princess, he knew he couldn't win. Taking along all of her advisers, who were also his chief suspects, would give them greater opportunities for betrayal outside the familiar protection of the palace but it would also limit the scheming they were capable of if he could break their lines of communication. Having the queen and princess lead the City Guard against what was either an outside threat or a coup already in progress would certainly inspire the common citizens of the kingdom; there was only one more defense that Bogo could raise.

"Your torcs won't function in the Outer Baronies, your majesty," he said, doing his best to make the words as respectful as possible, "An assassin might—"

"Yes, an assassin might have an easier time of it, knowing that they could kill the princess without dying themselves," the queen interrupted, waving one hoof dismissively, "Certainly should they succeed, it would leave less evidence as to how... How the deed was done."

Queen Lana's voice had wavered for a moment, and Bogo knew she had been imagining what it would be like to see her daughter, the mammal who meant more to her than anyone or anything in all the world, dead. "But we cannot give in to fear," the queen continued, and her voice was hard, "No monarch has left the safety of the Middle Baronies since we started using torcs."

She brushed her fingers against her own torc briefly as she spoke. "I think it time for that to change. The kingdom doesn't end at the Middle Wall, and the world doesn't end at the Outer Wall, as much as we might like it to be so. Make the arrangements for our travel."

"As you command, your majesty," Bogo said, bowing.

The queen sighed, and looked out her window over the grounds of the palace. It was subtle, but Bogo thought he could see the signs of how things had started to change since the first assassination attempt. There seemed to be extra wear on the grass from the increased patrols, and the gardeners working the grounds looked jumpy, twitching in the direction of sounds that he was too far away from to hear himself. Whether the queen noticed the same things or not, Bogo could not guess; she was perceptive but she had never served in the City Guard. What he was sure that she could not help but notice, however, were two figures on an isolated strip of ground. One of them was a goat who would have been unremarkable except for the fluid grace with which she wielded a wooden training sword. The other, also with a wooden sword but far more clumsy, had the peculiar and distinctive chimeric build of the princess.

"Perhaps someday we shall need a warrior queen," Queen Lana said quietly, watching the lopsided sparing match, "If my daughter's reign is to be one of war, I thought we had best start her along that path now."

Bogo wished he could say that he was sure that Isabel's reign, when the time eventually came, would be a peaceful one. But even as he thought the words, they had the ashy taste of a lie.

* * *

**Author's Notes:**

Otters really are noticeably less graceful on land than they are in water, so Bogo's perception of the lieutenant isn't solely his biases coming out. Tomas's explanation of alchemy, cut short as it is in parts, does align with what has previously been described in this story; I've consistently shown that when an object is transmuted the first step is for it to become so dark that it seems to absorb all light. Here, at least, Tomas claims that is precisely what is happening.

A swazzle is a key part of performing a Punch and Judy show, a puppet show that goes back hundreds of years. One of the characters, Punch, has a distinctly harsh and raspy voice that is created by the performer using a swazzle. The swazzle itself is, as Tomas describes, essentially just a reed surrounded by two strips of metal. The performer puts the swazzle in their mouth, between their tongue and the roof of their mouth, causing the reed to vibrate and change their voice as they speak. It takes some skill to use a swazzle properly—it's been said that no one really masters their use without swallowing one accidentally at least twice—but it definitely can make a person's voice sound rather unnatural.

The story that Queen Lana tells in this chapter of a lord being so embarrassed about passing gas in front of the monarch that he banished himself from court is inspired by a story from the court of Queen Elizabeth I. The Lord of Oxford broke wind in her presence and was so ashamed of it that he left the court and did not return for seven years, at which point the queen welcomed him back with the words, "My lord, I had forgot the fart."

It's also a nod to this story that it was Lord Buey, as "buey" is the Spanish word for "ox."

As always, thanks for reading! I'd love to know what you thought if you're so inclined as to leave a comment.


	29. Chapter 29

After fifteen minutes of Nick guiding them, creeping slowly through the abandoned streets, Judy wasn't impressed by the guildhall they stopped at. The building was particularly shabby, the white stones that made it up covered with lichen and other unidentifiable stains. A battered wooden sign, hanging crookedly from iron rings weeping runnels of rust, proclaimed "ADVENTURER'S GUILD" above the message "APPRENTICES WANTED." The letters looked like they had been carved by a kit, they were so uneven and lopsided, and didn't exactly inspire confidence.

If the guild had been perpetually accepting new apprentices, as the weathered nature of the sign implied, it didn't say much for their competence. Then again, perhaps they were the best that Phoenix had to offer and whatever lurked in the ruins beneath the settlement was really just that dangerous. "Don't let the name fool you," Nick said.

Despite being a fair distance away from the fissure outside Phoenix—and the army beyond it—he still spoke quietly. "They don't so much as 'adventure' as they 'loot,'" he said, the ghost of a smile touching his features, "I guess they thought it sounded better this way, though."

Judy nodded and carefully pushed the door open. Inside the guildhall, there was the same eerie feeling that the mammals inside had simply up and left. Contrasting to the somewhat grandiose name of the guild, but matching the exterior quite well, the interior was surprisingly mundane; it looked like a more ill-kept version of the City Guard barracks. The first floor seemed to be about half one large room with a pitted and scuffed wooden floor that creaked and groaned no matter how carefully they stepped. There was a small reception desk with a massive set of filing cabinets behind it, messily crammed with papers that made the drawers droop slightly from the weight. A large number of desks were scattered across the room with only the vaguest semblance to a pattern, most of them covered with sloppy stacks of paper and odd artifacts. Some of the desks had half-eaten plates of food or cast-off personal items; one had a half-oiled dagger resting atop a whetstone and another a single thick-soled boot beside it.

Nick slowly shut the front door behind them and started in the direction of the wall that separated the guild's desks from whatever took up the rest of the floor. On the way he had explained—quietly—that the best way to access the ruins under Phoenix would be through one of the many guilds dedicated to recovering useful artifacts. Judy was sure that it would have been easy enough for Nick to simply make them an opening, but she could appreciate the logic in using an existing access point that would open into tunnels and not simply drop them into one of the cavernous open parts of Quimichpatlan Barony she had seen in cross-section.

Nick paused by the door, waiting for her to join him, before he spoke again. "It occurred to me," he said softly, "That maybe that army outside got here through the same tunnels we're going to use."

"Oh," Judy said.

She froze in place, her paw reaching out for the doorknob. An image flashed through her head of twenty or so armed mammals, pouring up from the tunnels below, waiting for them on the other side of the door. "That would be bad," she said at last.

Nick sighed. "You're going to open that door, aren't you?" he asked.

"Yes."

Nick held his breath as she pulled the door open, but there were no mammals, armed or otherwise, in the next room. Judy stepped in, and after a moment Nick followed cautiously.

It was filthier than the other room, dirt seemingly ground into the floor and splattered up the walls, and was dominated by an enormous set of shelves filled with artifacts of all sorts. Somewhat incongruously, every shelf was neatly labeled with a small tag that identified what it was, covering everything from "Plates, silver" to "Candelabra, gold" to "Unknown." There were more shelves labeled "Unknown" than Judy really felt comfortable with; it seemed to her that centuries-old junk should at least be identifiable. But she had no idea what some of the items on display were; some looked almost like alchemical torches, the central stone cracked and chipped and surrounded by an elaborate mesh of bent and corroded wire. Others looked like clocks designed by an insane mammal, with a dizzying number of gears and springs set in battered cases all engraved with odd symbols. One shelf contained a few brittle-looking fragments of something that looked disturbingly like an alpaca's pelt somehow embedded in a clear crystal. There were squiggly strokes that looked like writing on the raw side of the pelt, but it wasn't any language Judy had so much as seen before, and the label on the shelf read "Unknown — Possibly Blood Magic."

"This is the sort of stuff they recover from the ruins?" Judy asked, wrenching her attention away from the bizarre collection of artifacts to look at Nick.

For his part, Nick didn't appear to have any particular interest in what was on display; he was rummaging through a set of lockers that Judy hadn't noticed set against one wall. "Hmm?" he said, emerging from one locker with a particularly odd-looking torch, "Yes, there are all kinds of things down there. That's why we want these."

He brandished the torch toward her triumphantly, but Judy simply stared at it. Most alchemical torches designed to be held followed the same general structure, just at different sizes and in sometimes slightly different shapes to make it easier for one species or another to hold them. But unlike the typical design of an elongated cylinder with an opening at one end that could be covered to hide the light the glowing stone produced, what Nick held was a blocky cube that dangled from a wire handle. It did have what looked like a standard alchemical torch opening, but set next to it was something that reminded Judy of parties—a metal shade around a glass-walled partition surrounding a wick.

Alchemical lights were so cheap that Judy had only ever seen candles on the rare occasions when her parents had tried putting on a "proper" party, and she couldn't imagine why anyone would want to include a dimmer light that needed to burn fuel as part of a lamp meant for exploring dark ruins. Nick must have noticed her puzzled expression, because he chuckled to himself. "It's a safety measure," he said, tapping one claw against the shade surrounding the fuel-burning lamp, "If this light goes out, it means the air's no good to breathe or it might explode on us."

Then he tapped the alchemical torch portion of the lamp. "And if  _this_ light goes out, it means something down there is blocking alchemy from working."

"There are things that can do that?" Judy blurted, the words out of her mouth before she could think about them.

Nick raised an eyebrow at her. "Assuming you aren't forgetting the jail cell we just escaped from, yes. There are things down there that can stop alchemy."

"How? The same as the cell?"

"If the anti-alchemy array was on the shell of a giant turtle, yes."

Judy blinked at Nick, but he looked rather more serious than he usually did. "A giant turtle?" she repeated, turning it into a question.

"A turtle the size of a city block," Nick said, "Or something turtle-y, anyway."

Judy could barely imagine anything living being so enormous, but she couldn't see any sign whatsoever that Nick was joking. "Maybe the blood magicians made them to fight the alchemists," he continued after a brief pause, "There isn't exactly anyone left to ask about it, but they're probably not natural unless you think the gods have a cruel sense of humor."

"I see," Judy said after a moment; there was nothing else she could think of worth saying.

"They're called Nopalayotl, if you were wondering," Nick said.

"Because that'll help if one attacks us?" she asked.

Nick actually laughed at her little joke, but to Judy's ears it sounded a little strained. "How do you manage that, Carrots?" he asked, shaking his head, "Why doesn't anything scare you?"

"You think I'm not scared of anything?"

"You're the bravest mammal I've ever met," he said.

Judy felt her ears flushing at the compliment; it was perhaps one of the nicest things anyone had ever told her. Nick coughed, turning aside. "Or maybe the dumbest," Nick continued, "Our best bet is to get through Quimichpatlan as quickly as possible. If we run into anything, we just keep running."

"Nick," Judy said, and she reached out to grab his paw, "Thank you."

Nick turned back to look at her, cocking his head to the side and then looking down at his paw, but he didn't pull away from her grasp. He was warm to the touch, the roughness of his paw pads and the size of his fingers making him unlike any bunny. "I haven't exactly done much, you know," he said, "Wait until we're out of this mess."

"I never would have gotten out of that cell without you," Judy said, "And I don't think I can get through the ruins alone. I  _need_  you."

Perhaps it was just a trick of the light, but Judy would have sworn that she saw the insides of Nick's ears flush before they fell bashfully back. "You know how to make a fox feel wanted," he said at last, pulling his paw free from her grasp and tugging at his coat, "But that was a pretty terrible prison. Rogelio only made the bars out of diamond because  _real_ anti-alchemy cells have walls made out of diamond. Just be glad my proposal didn't win or we'd still be in there."

"Really?"

Nick coughed. "Well, maybe. Maybe not. Who can say?" he said, shrugging his shoulders carelessly, "Now come on, we've got everything we'll need and I'd rather just get this over with."

Despite his words, Judy thought she could see a tremble in his body as they walked towards another door on the far side of the room. Judy knew that whatever method led down to the ruins—whether it was a lift or stairs or a ladder—they would find it behind the door. Judy didn't even hesitate to open it, and she saw Nick cringe a bit away as she did. "Don't worry," she said, "No matter what, I promise you're making it back out."

Nick looked from her to the center of the room. There wasn't much to it; it was as dirty as the storeroom they had crossed through to get to it, and all that was in it—besides clods of dirt that glittered in the harsh light of a single alchemical torch—was a wide and well-worn set of stairs made out of marble. It looked as though it had actually been a part of some building that had gone from the depths of Quimichpatlan Barony to the surface, although what it had been Judy couldn't guess at. Despite the lines of alchemical torches that had been somewhat haphazardly fashioned to the beautifully carved banisters, Judy couldn't see how far down the stairs went. "Well if you promise, what do I have to worry about?" Nick asked, but Judy didn't think she heard any sarcasm in his voice.

She started down the stairs, and Nick followed.

* * *

As it turned out, the staircase was quite a bit longer than Judy would have even guessed at. To her eyes, it looked like the members of the Adventurer's Guild had carved out the ground around the staircase where it had collapsed in centuries ago; in some spots large rocks protruded onto the stairs themselves, shattering the ornate banister on one side or the other. It certainly helped explain why the guildhall had been so dirty, considering the volume of earth that they must have removed, but it also meant that for a descent into a mysterious and ruined barony it was surprisingly boring.

All she could see, in the light of the alchemical torches set in the stairs and in the light of the one that Nick carried, was rough dirt walls and worn stairs. Compared to the cross-section of the barony she had seen upon approaching Phoenix, it certainly didn't give her the same sense of wonder. "It doesn't look like an army passed this way," Judy said after perhaps ten minutes of silent descent.

"I guess not," Nick said.

They were quiet a moment longer, the only sounds the muffled fall of their feet and a far-off moaning that Judy sincerely hoped was simply the wind blowing through the ruins, before Judy said, "What do you think it means, that the army had the Betrayer's banner?"

"The Betrayer?" Nick said, "More like the Patsy."

Judy didn't think she could ever remember anyone coming to Oztoyehuatl's defense; she had always been taught that the fox had been a wicked usurper. Then again, most of those lessons had also implied that Oztoyehuatl had been wicked because he was a fox, which didn't seem fair to Nick. "You don't think he betrayed Duke Ocelotl?" she asked, turning to look at him.

"Oh, no, he probably definitely did that," Nick said, "But did you ever wonder why he did it?"

Judy knew the story as well as any kit did. After Emperor Ocelotl had abdicated the throne and allowed King Oveja I to rise to power, he had been named a duke and worked tirelessly to build connections between the new regime and the old society. He had become a symbol of Zootopia's synthesis, and remained much beloved by his former subjects. Oztoyehuatl, one of the Emperor's old blood magicians, had hated how much the city had changed—especially, it was said, the ban on mammal sacrifice in performing blood magic—that he had conspired to murder King Oveja I and re-install Ocelotl on the throne to return to the old ways. Duke Ocelotl, who had been totally ignorant of the plot, immediately turned the treacherous fox in once he learned of what was planned, preventing what would have likely been years or decades of civil war and further enshrining himself as a powerful beacon of Zootopia's future.

"He wanted things back the way they were," Judy said.

"Things never go back to the way they were," Nick said, and Judy saw a shadow of something she had never seen on his face before.

What it was, she couldn't quite name, and he continued before she could think on it further. "What I mean is, if he wanted blood magicians and predators like himself to have unlimited power again, why bother trying to reinstate Ocelotl? Why not just kill the king and declare himself Emperor?"

Judy's feet stumbled a step. It wasn't a question she had ever heard asked, let alone discussed. "Because... Ocelotl was a symbol," she managed at last, "Oztoyehuatl needed him."

"Maybe," Nick allowed, "But if his entire plan hinged on Ocelotl taking the throne again, shouldn't he have done a better job making sure Ocelotl would agree to it before committing treason?"

Judy didn't have an answer to that. "Maybe Oztoyehuatl was just evil and short-sighted and blind to what the subjects of Zootopia really wanted," Nick said, and the pattern of the words caught her; one of her textbooks had described that long-dead blood magician fox in nearly the same words, and Nick had clearly read the same book.

"Or maybe Ocelotl really did want to be Emperor again and sold Oztoyehuatl out to save his own neck. Maybe mammals would have rioted in the streets if King Oveja had Ocelotl executed for treason. Maybe it would have just kicked off a war even larger than the one they just fought. Against that, what's the life of one fox who may or may not have been guilty of treason anyway?"

"If Oztoyehuatl wasn't guilty," Judy said, and it felt incredibly bizarre to be saying those words; it was like she was entertaining the notion that water was dry or the sun was cold, "He shouldn't have been punished. And if Duke Ocelotl was part of the plan, he should have been."

"Even if it led to war?"

Judy wanted to say yes. Her moral compass wanted to say that punishing the innocent or letting the guilty go free in the name of stability was a terrible crime in and of itself. Laws had to exist for a reason, and if anyone was above them they meant nothing. And yet her mind came back to what Nick had just said.  _What's the life of one fox?_

Against the thousands who would have died in a bloody and terrible civil war, what was one life? "Even if it led to war," Judy repeated.

Every instinct said it was the right answer at the same time they said it was the wrong one. Nick looked surprised at her answer, and he grinned. "The rich and powerful better be afraid of you, Ensign Carrots," he said, "You keep answering like that, and you'll never make it to lieutenant."

Judy wondered how much truth there was to his words. Had Captain General Bogo made it to his rank through political manipulation, letting criminals walk free because of their connections or what it would mean for the city's stability if they were arrested? She wanted to believe that he was an honorable mammal who would have answered Nick's question with far more ease than she had. She could imagine him saying, in that gruff voice she recalled from the commencement address he had given, "Crime is crime. If we ignore criminals we  _are_ criminals."

But then she could also imagine him saying, with a sort of bemused weariness, "The City Guard exists to ensure the stability of Zootopia. Nothing more and nothing less."

Dwelling on it wouldn't help any, though, and Judy forced the thoughts aside. Perhaps, once they had gotten past the ring of soldiers around Phoenix, she'd have the chance to speak directly to Captain General Bogo and hear for herself how he thought. In the meantime, though, she tried to think of what the army meant. "So maybe that army is using Oztoyehuatl's sigil because  _he's_ a symbol," she said, returning to a thought that had occurred to her the first time she saw the banners.

"Maybe," Nick said, nodding agreeably, "I'm pretty sure he's long dead. Makes it a little hard to lead an army, or so I hear."

They kept walking down the staircase, which turned ninety degrees every thirty feet, and at last Judy saw something that broke up the monotony. There, thirty feet in front of them, was where the staircase ended. Dirt had been crudely moved away from a crumbling and irregular opening, supported by a surprisingly sturdy-looking array of thick wooden beams. Then again, Judy supposed that if there was one thing you didn't want to happen when your job depended on looting ruins it was having the ground collapse on you.

A dim light was coming from beyond that gateway, and Judy pressed onward. What she saw took her breath away.

Even the glimpse of the ruins she had caught from outside Phoenix hadn't prepared her for what she stood amidst; those ruins had been broken apart and exposed to weather, not to mention obviously already looted. The chamber she stood in was so massive that she couldn't see where it ended, the pools of light coming from the alchemical torches simply not reaching far enough. The ceiling might have been forty feet above her head, where the light fell just short of, or it might have been eighty or more. What she could see, though, was absolutely incredible. They were standing in what looked like a city street, except stretched out to at least four levels in height; there might have been even more levels further down where the light didn't reach. Massive ramps and walkways bridged the gaps between buildings that might have almost looked at place above ground. By and large, they weren't in ruins, either.

Elaborate mosaics of volcanic glass, silver, amber, and gold covered the walls forming crazed abstract patterns that bulged in and out into complicated three-dimensional shapes that seemed to change entirely depending on the angle Judy viewed them at. The light glittered off brightly painted storefronts, and while most of the grubby windows were empty it was obvious that it was because they had already been looted. Behind other windows, Judy could see the tattered remnants of cloth of gold and strange tools, all illuminated by the weak greenish glow of ancient alchemical torches. Here and there, scattered across the ground, were skeletons of mammals who had died centuries before her great-great-grandparents had been born, some of them half-buried in drifts of dirt. Others had obviously been excavated, and Judy felt a moment of disgust as she realized why; the members of the Adventurer's Guild had looted the jewelry off the skeletons. Some of the skeletons, though, were even stranger than Judy could have guessed at. She saw a bat skeleton that looked as though it had been partially transmuted into some kind of crystal, irregular hexagonal prisms suddenly giving way to bone. In another spot, what looked like the skeleton of a giant cat—a tiger or a lion, maybe—seemed to have been  _merged_ with the bones of a bear, as though two soft bits of clay had been mashed together.

In other places, there were more obvious signs of transmutation. She saw one storefront, and the ground surrounding part of it, was made out of gold in what looked like the cross-section of a perfect sphere. The transition from gold shaped exactly like the rest of the wall to stone was so perfectly precise that it didn't seem possible alchemy hadn't been involved; so too was that the case of a different store front that had a pentagonal section simply missing. The borders of that pentagon, even centuries later, were perfectly precise, and where they cut through the contents of the store—which looked to be elaborately painted clay pots—that perfection was maintained.

Judy couldn't help but gawk, every direction she turned her head revealing a new wonder or horror. Nick, though, was simply looking at the ground. "No sign of monsters," he said, gesturing at the paw- and hoof-prints in the soft dirt, "It might not be deep enough for them."

His voice echoed weirdly in the wide open space of the buried barony, the sounds becoming clipped and distorted as they faded. Judy forced herself to examine the ground as well, and from what she could see Nick was right. The only prints she saw were for recognizable mammals; she didn't know what a monster's feet looked like—or even if they  _had_ feet—but she didn't see anything that looked out of place. Besides footprints, all she saw were ruts that looked like the tracks of a cart, which she supposed might be useful depending on what the guild was pulling out of the ruins. "Which way?" Judy asked, looking around.

She had lost her orientation sometime on their descent down the stairs, but Nick simply pointed off. "That's north-east," he said, with absolute confidence, "We want to go south."

He spun to face the right direction, and Judy simply stared at him. "How did you  _do_ that?" she asked, "You don't have a compass."

Nick had impressed her above ground with his sense of direction through Phoenix, but she had assumed that he simply had the settlement's layout memorized after years of visiting. She didn't see how he could have possibly repeated the feat underground; until that moment it hadn't occurred to her how they would make sure they didn't get lost with no landmarks. "I don't need one," he said, shrugging.

"Is that an alchemist trick?"

"A fox one, actually," he said, smiling slightly, "But you can think it's magic, if you'd like."

"Do you know how far we have to go?" Judy asked.

Nick shrugged. "We'll know when we get to the fissure," he said, "Once we get past it, we can go up more or less wherever we want."

It made sense to her, and she started off in the direction Nick had indicated. They walked in silence, the only sound their footsteps and that far off moaning of wind. "Nick?" Judy said suddenly.

"Yes, Carrots?" he replied.

"I think you're braver than you give yourself credit for."

He was silent a moment. "Thanks," he said, and she felt his tail brush past her leg.

* * *

**Author's Notes:**

The design of a typical hand-held alchemical torch is, of course, inspired directly by a typical flashlight. There have been a few references in earlier chapters that alchemical torches are essentially always on, and thus if you don't want them to glow you need to cover them.

The lamp that Nick "borrows" from the guild is inspired by safety lamps, which were first created for coal miners in the 19th century. In the days before electric lighting, the means of providing miners with light was a serious problem. Open flames, like candles, could cause combustible gases that built up in mines to cause explosions, or even just cause fine particulate to combust. Safety lamps were cleverly designed to not only not cause explosions, but also to indicate the air quality. Some were designed such that they would go out if there was too high a concentration of explosive gas or too low a concentration of oxygen, either being situations where the miner would want to get out.

"Nopalayotl" would literally mean "cactus turtle" in the Nahuatl language. What that implies is left to your imagination.

This chapter finally gives a more or less full description of what Oztoyehuatl the Betrayer is considered to be guilty of. As established way back at the beginning of this story, the ruling emperor was deposed and became a duke under the new regime; this fills in some more details as to how the official version of that story goes.

Red foxes in real life do indeed have what appears to be some kind of sense of where magnetic north-east is; although nothing has been proven definitively, it certainly appears as though they have the ability to sense magnetic fields. I figure that's a useful trick that Nick has up his sleeve when it comes to finding his way around, and it'd be one that he'd find largely unremarkable himself. It'd be like someone with normal color vision distinguishing between green and red; if you have the sense it's simply obvious to you.

As always, thanks for reading! If you're so inclined as to comment, I'd love to know what you thought.


	30. Chapter 30

Time was always the enemy. It wasn't a lesson that anyone had ever deliberately told Bogo, but a conclusion he had drawn himself over the years. When he had been a lieutenant, it was why he could barely patrol his entire beat on a single shift and why so many petty thieves got away when it took him too long to get to the crime scene. When he had been a captain, and he had missed so much of his own daughter growing up, it was because there weren't enough hours in the day to do everything he needed to. And now, as he planned to lead an army to Phoenix he couldn't help but wonder if he would be too late.

For the moment, though, there was little that he could do but wait. For most of the trip out of the center of the city-state the speed at which they were moving was entirely outside his control, which wasn't a particularly comforting thought as he stood watching out the porthole of the office aboard his ship. That he could travel by ship was, at least, a sign that the mammals who had designed Zootopia so many years ago had known what they were doing. The massive aqueducts that radiated out from the center of Zootopia were far wider and deeper than they needed to be if they had only been intended for moving water. They had, in fact, been designed to allow the easy use of watercraft for the movement of mammals and cargo from the center to the Middle Baronies. Each aqueduct also had a companion running the opposite direction, the water flowing from the Middle Baronies back towards the Inner Baronies in an enormous cycle. Where the aqueducts flowing into the Inner Baronies terminated was simply a vast circular canal, but where they ended at the border of the Middle Baronies were tremendous waterfalls with City Guard fortifications built atop them, massive stone grills preventing ships from going over the edge of the Middle Wall.

Bogo had made many trips to the Middle Baronies, mostly for inspection tours, but he had never traveled so fast. The gentle slope of the aqueducts was enough to take an unpowered ship from the center of the Inner Baronies to the edge of the Middle Baronies in about a day, and that was generally fast enough for most cargo. The ship he was aboard, however, had a massive alchemical engine spinning a pair of paddle wheels so fast that he could feel the vibrations coming up through the deck. The cargo area was full of members of the City Guard and their equipment, and he had five other ships all doing the same. All told, there were just over two thousand mammals as part of the expedition, which he could only hope would be enough. If he had the time—or additional ships he could commandeer from the Guild of Water Merchants—Bogo might have been able to bring more soldiers, but the two thousand he had picked were the ones he could trust and that the Inner Baronies could spare. Once again, it all came down to time. Bogo shook his head, repressing a sigh, and forced himself to look away from the porthole and its view of the outskirts of the Inner Baronies speeding past and made his way out of his cabin.

The ship he was aboard was one of the few that the City Guard owned outright; it had been built as an odd combination of a luxury ship for the reigning monarch and a troop transport. What that meant, in practical terms, was that everything below the waterline was as charmless and efficient as any cargo ship, but half of the cabins above the waterline were plushly furnished and the exterior of the ship was extensively and elaborately gilded. Bogo's own cabin, although only about twice the size of his cramped hidden bedroom in his office in the palace, was larger than that of the ship's captain, and the queen had a suite of rooms that were only small by royal standards. It was to the queen's suites that he made his way, having to turn sideways to get his broad shoulders through the cramped passageways; the designers of the ship apparently hadn't considered the possibility that a buffalo would be the head of the City Guard.

Once he was admitted to the royal suite by a pair of guards, the scene was much as he had expected it to be. In what would have been a parlor, had the queen simply been on a pleasure cruise, an ornately carved circular table intended for card games had been re-purposed as a conference table. The queen sat at it with a rather unhealthy-looking greenish pallor to her skin where it was visible under her wool; Bogo knew she suffered from sea-sickness even from the gentle motion of a boat on a lake, and the way the rapidly moving ship vibrated and occasionally bounced in the water had to be an agony for her. As befitted her station, she hadn't so much as mentioned her discomfort, although Bogo strongly suspected that she wouldn't be able to eat anything until solid ground was under her hooves again. At the queen's side, the princess sat, her expression bright and interested; she apparently didn't suffer from water travel the way her mother did and seemed to be actually enjoying the ride. The other chairs at the table were empty, but there were four, intended for Bogo, Corazón, Cerdo, and Cencerro.

Bogo took his seat, nodding respectfully in the direction of the queen and princess first. "Your majesties," he said.

"Lord Bogo," the queen said, her voice somewhat stiffer than usual; Bogo suspected that she was trying to concentrate on anything other than how sick she was feeling.

In better times, the queen had never used the ship built first for her grandfather, preferring instead to travel by ground when she left the Inner Baronies. She had, however, understood the need to move as quickly as possible, and had even been the one to suggest the use of the ship. "The rest of your council will join us shortly," he said, and she nodded.

Again at the queen's suggestion, they hadn't bothered to hold a council meeting to discuss the situation at Phoenix. Bogo had marshaled his soldiers as quickly as possible, and then had simply ordered Corazón, Cerdo, and Cencerro aboard the lead ship, taking a not inconsiderable amount of pleasure from the act. The queen's logic was simple; she wouldn't give them the chance to plot and scheme until they were already aboard the ship. The ship had been underway for almost an hour, and it was time to provide them with an update.

A few minutes went by and the three mammals entered, obviously confused but not daring to voice their displeasure directly. "I acknowledge that the manner in which we're meeting is unusual," the queen began, once everyone was seated, "But time is not our friend right now."

Bogo didn't speak, but he couldn't help but notice that the queen's thoughts seemed to echo his own. But then, he supposed her life had also reinforced the idea that time would do everything it could to slip out of your grasp. He turned his focus to the three other members of the council, and saw that Princess Isabel was doing the same; whether she was seeing anything he could not was impossible to say as her expression was a neutral mask.

To Bogo's eye, Lady Cencerro looked mildly queasy, but perhaps she simply shared the queen's tendency toward seasickness. Or perhaps she was nervous about being found out; whatever the case Bogo mentally filed the observation away. Lord Corazón appeared simply interested, propping his head up with one massive arm on the little table as he stared intently at the queen. Lord Cerdo's pudgy face was creased in confusion, or perhaps concentration, and like Corazón he seemed to be hanging on to every word. "We have received word from Lieutenant Colonel Diego Cencerro that Phoenix was attacked by barbarians from beyond the Outer Wall," the queen continued.

It had been Bogo's idea that she be the one to explain the situation; it would better allow him to focus on how the other members of the council reacted to the news if he didn't also have to share it. "That's impossible!" Lord Cerdo interrupted, and then he waved one arm hastily, "My apologies for interrupting, your majesty, but how could  _barbarians_ possibly have attacked? There's nothing but wastelands outside the wall."

"Have you ever been outside the Outer Wall?" the queen asked, and there was a dangerous edge to her voice, polite though it was.

"Well, no, but—" the pig began, and the queen cut him off.

"It is true that what can be seen from Phoenix of the land beyond the Outer Wall is nothing but uninhabited scrublands," the queen continued smoothly.

Although the queen had never been to Phoenix, she delivered the words with perfect poise, as though she was simply sharing an observation of her own rather than what she had learned from reports. Years of those reports had suggested that Cerdo was right; no one had ever observed alchemical torches or even fires off in the distance beyond the Outer Wall. Still, Bogo was more interested in the objection than he was in the truth of the matter. If one of the other council members were to reveal something, it might be by objecting too strenuously or attempting to guide the conversation along certain paths rather than by revealing something only the culprit behind the events could know. And while Bogo didn't suspect Cerdo nearly as strongly as he did Corazón and Cencerro, anything that might save him the trouble of executing his more complicated trap would be useful.

"However," the queen said, raising one finger and looking directly at Cerdo, "We have a very limited understanding of what's outside of Zootopia. The watchtowers along the Outer Wall have gone unused for generations, and Phoenix is our only view out. Were you to peer through a keyhole, you would not dare to say with perfect confidence that you could see everything within the room, would you, Lord Cerdo?"

"No, your majesty," the pig said humbly, bowing his head and averting his eyes.

"It is true that we currently have very limited information to work off of," the queen said, "As of now, all we have is the message that the Lieutenant Colonel provided."

The queen nodded in Bogo's direction, and he pulled the message out from an inner pocket and gave it to her. With a minor touch of theatrical flair, the queen carefully smoothed it out on the table and read it aloud. Again, Bogo watched carefully as the council members reacted to the terse message and its plea for assistance. This time, it was Cencerro who had the greatest reaction; the little sheep's brow furrowed and her eyes widened. "Your majesty," Cencerro started, a touch timidly once the queen had finished reading, "If I may interrupt?"

The queen nodded graciously. "You haven't heard anything more from Diego? He's my cousin, you know, and the way that was worded... Well, it certainly sounds like Diego, but I want to know that he's fine and he rescued as many mammals as he possibly could," Cencerro said.

 _That was an interesting tactic_ , Bogo thought to himself as he repressed a frown. Everyone at the table would know that Diego Cencerro was her cousin—considering they shared a family name, it would be blatantly obvious even if they hadn't known ahead of time—but Lady Cencerro had deliberately called attention to that fact. Was her interest in his safety truly out of familial concern, or was she attempting to portray herself as innocent by being the first to acknowledge the relation as though it was of no concern?

Princess Isabel's expression, Bogo noted, had collapsed into a slight frown, but she quickly reached across the little table and patted Lady Cencerro's hoof. "We can hope he's fine," she said sympathetically, "I'm sure the two of you are close."

Considering the princess's age and relative lack of political experience compared to everyone else around the table, Bogo had to admire her play; she was maneuvering Cencerro into a position to be forced to reveal more than she might want to. Acknowledging a close relationship make her seem suspicious if the conversation drifted toward the possibility that the Lieutenant Colonel had made up the threat, but denying it could make it look like she was trying to distance herself. "Well, I wouldn't say we're  _especially_ close," Lady Cencerro said with a nervous-sounding chuckle, "But he is family, and I can't help but worry about him and all those poor mammals. He always was a little strange."

"A little strange in what way?" Corazón asked, "Do you suppose he might be lying? Do you think this might be a trap we're heading into? Your majesty, if there is any chance that your safety might be—"

"I have considered the risk to the safety of myself and the princess," the queen interrupted, her tone firm, "And concluded that it is a necessary one."

Bogo considered the interactions that had just played out. Although Corazón had been the first to raise the possibility that Diego Cencerro was lying, Lady Cencerro had given him the perfect opportunity to ask the question. Coincidence, perhaps, or maybe an indicator that the two were conspiring together. It was also possible that Corazón was doing nothing more than trying to make Lady Cencerro look bad, no matter how full of concern his rich voice had seemed.

"However, I  _would_  value your opinion, Lady Cencerro," the queen continued gently, and she put her own hoof atop the other sheep's as her daughter had a moment before, "Do you suppose Diego Cencerro might be conspiring against the throne?"

"Oh, no, certainly not," Lady Cencerro said, "When I said he was strange, all I meant was that he was a little shy when he was a lamb. Almost as though he was in his own little world, sometimes, and I don't think I ever heard him laugh. We didn't see each other very often, but from what I heard he excelled in the academy."

It was a rather definite statement that she had just made, one that would make her seem all the more suspicious as a possible co-conspirator if Diego Cencerro was lying. Which didn't mean that Bogo would consider Lady Cencerro any less suspicious; sometimes maneuvering yourself into a better position involved putting yourself in a worse one first. "Did he, Lord Bogo?" Cerdo asked, leaning across the table to look up into Bogo's face, "Surely you'd be the one to know."

"His service record is spotless," Bogo said simply, "A fact that was taken into account when he was assigned to his post as the head of the Phoenix City Guard."

"Well he certainly  _sounds_  trustworthy," Corazón said, gesturing grandly, "Perhaps we might continue, then."

Bogo studied the lion's seemingly guileless face. Had  _he_ involved Diego Cencerro in a conspiracy, and was now trying to get the conversation off the topic? The queen might have been thinking along similar lines, for she glanced at the lion briefly before continuing. "Lord Bogo has assembled a combination of the City Guard and the personal guards you have each so kindly volunteered," she said, pausing briefly to glance around the table at each of the council members, "To evaluate the threat. Once we arrive at the edge of the Middle Baronies, we'll rendezvous with Lieutenant Colonel Cencerro at the War Gate—if he's made it that far, or on the road if he hasn't—and press onward to Phoenix."

Although Bogo could appreciate the care that had been put into making Zootopia's aqueduct system a viable means of transport, their design also betrayed something of a paranoid streak that he couldn't bring himself to disagree with. Although they formed the fastest route to the Middle Wall, they didn't have a direct path  _through_ the wall. The long-ago designers had staggered the gates apart from the aqueducts such that they'd have to travel part of the distance around the inner curve of the wall before leaving. It was, Bogo knew, intended to make the city more difficult to invade; attackers would be unable to take a direct route from the edge of the Outer Wall to the heart of Zootopia. Of course, the very existence of the War Gate proved that it was a better idea in theory than it had been in practice. The War Gate was not only a monument to the long ago war when the Oveja dynasty had taken power but also one as to how they had done so, marking the point where the Middle Wall had been breached to circumvent the existing gates.

Still, it meant that there was a reasonably fast path from the aqueduct that pointed most closely in Phoenix's direction to a way through the Middle Wall, and Bogo wasn't about to complain about it. "May I ask why you have decided to accompany this force?" Corazón asked, "Begging your pardon, your majesty, but would not the palace be safer for you and the princess?"

It was the question that Bogo was sure everyone but the princess and he himself was wondering, and it was interesting that Corazón was the first to ask it. It was also the second time that Corazón had suggested his concern for the queen's safety, and again Bogo considered the motive. The problem, he supposed, with being confronted with the existence of a real yet murky conspiracy was not knowing precisely how paranoid it was appropriate to be.

"In light of the recent attacks on the princess, I consider ourselves safest while in Lord Bogo's presence," the queen said.

Everyone turned to look at Bogo, as he knew that they would; the queen had strongly implied that she trusted him far more than any of the others. What they drew from that conclusion, Bogo couldn't say; Cerdo had simply nodded to himself while both Corazón and Cencerro kept their faces neutral. In Cencerro's case, at least, as neutral as she could look while still seeming vaguely queasy. "I see," Cencerro said.

The queen smiled slightly. "You're wondering, I'm sure, why I've brought all of you along. I'm sure you can all understand the need for smooth cooperation between the members of your own personal guards you've volunteered and the City Guard," the queen said with a casualness that Bogo found impressive.

She had managed to make it sound like a trivial detail, and he hoped the others wouldn't catch its true importance. "Lord Bogo will meet with each of you individually to go over the arrangements. That covers everything for now, I believe; you are all dismissed."

There it was. The queen had provided him, as they had arranged, with the perfect opportunity to set out his bait for the council members to see. And, Bogo thought as he stood up from the table, while none of the others knew it yet, at least one of them would be walking into a trap the instant they entered his cabin.

* * *

**Author's Notes:**

The aqueducts that the army is using for the first leg of their journey have been mentioned a few times before in this story; in chapter 12 Bogo watches the setting sun glint off the water in them from the palace, and in chapter 13 Judy notes that they only go as far as the ends of the Middle Baronies. Although the Romans, easily the most famous of aqueduct builders, didn't really use theirs for the transport of anything but water, that hasn't always been the case. In the 17th century the building of navigable aqueducts became more common as a means of linking canals to get cargo around more easily.

It took Judy about a day of travel to reach the edge of the Middle Baronies traveling from more or less the center of the city-state, but Bogo and his army are moving significantly faster. Rank, after all, does have its privileges, and taking ships as fast as they can go on a straight-path water way helps.

Paddle wheel driven ships were the major predecessor to modern screw-driven ships, and are significantly faster than either rowing or using a sail. Screw drives didn't become common until around the 19th century, but experiments with putting paddle wheels on boats date to about when steam engines were first invented. The ship Bogo is aboard has an alchemical engine rather than something that burns wood or coal; the modern era of this story is not without its marvels.

Unlike some mammals, but like humans, sheep can vomit. Seasickness also isn't a uniquely human phenomenon, as some animals will also become ill.

Chapter 13 did mention that beyond the Outer Wall there appears to be nothing but scrublands, and this chapter goes a bit more into what's been observed out there. The War Gate is the same gate that Judy left through all the way back in chapter 1; as mentioned there it was built where a hole was punched through the wall long ago.

As always, thanks for reading! If you're so inclined as to leave a comment I'd love to know what you thought.


	31. Chapter 31

Judy had never particularly cared for history when she had been younger. Her tutors in the subject had been more concerned with her ability to remember family lineages and dates than in giving her any real understanding of what had happened. With a few exceptions, such as the story of how the Oveja line had taken over Zootopia and ushered it into a new age of cooperation and peace, history had never been more than a series of dry facts.

But as she and Nick hurried through the ruins of Quimichpatlan Barony, Judy couldn't help but wonder if her teachers had known the awe-inspiring truth of the past and simply hadn't passed it on to her or if they really hadn't cared about anything but those rote facts. Everything they passed seemed to call out for further study, giving hints at the sorts of mammals who had lived and died centuries ago.

They passed buildings that were recognizably restaurants, some with names chiseled into the rock in the Old Tongue that Judy could half-read. They passed countless shops and apartment buildings, some of them bearing the curious impact of an unimaginable alchemy. One building had iridescent stepped cubes bulging tumor-like from its side. Another seemed to have been partially transmuted into sand that piled in drifts around the collapsed wall. Here and there alchemical torches, dim and green with age, provided ghostly illumination beyond what the lantern Nick carried provided, but there were always lurking shadows. Judy got the feeling that the path they were taking hadn't been traveled by looters from the Adventurer's Guild, or even any other mammal in recent history; the ground was thick with undisturbed dust and the air had an unpleasantly musty smell.

After perhaps half an hour they had to go down an alley after the path they were following simply ended in rubble. Before the barony had been destroyed, the alley, the walls of which were covered with illegible graffiti and rude carvings, would have ended at the wall of a building. Instead, however, the titanic forces that had spelled the barony's doom had split the building the wall belonged to in two, and the path directly through a number of building stretched off as far as the lantern light carried.

"It's the right direction," Nick said, and they plunged onward.

It was very strange to be walking through the cross-sections of buildings, many of which seemed to have survived largely intact. It reminded Judy of nothing more than a dollhouse, built without a back wall to allow play. In some places, whatever had split the buildings had also brought debris from upper floors—rusting chairs, broken bits of pottery, assorted pieces of metal—onto the path they walked. Despite that, the way through was still clear enough for them, although a larger mammal might have had a harder time; in some spots there was barely two or three feet of clearance.

Most of the buildings they passed through seemed surprisingly mundane, shops and restaurants and the ruins of apartments. But when they came to one of the last buildings before the path opened back up into one of the cavernous empty spaces that dominated the barony, Judy froze.

There was no question in Judy's mind that it had been a classroom of some sort; there were rows and rows of small metal desks, all facing the same direction. Whatever papers had once been in the room had long since rotted away or crumbled to nothing, but at nearly twenty of the desks were dust-covered bones.

Small bones.

"These were children," Judy said, and she suddenly felt a sickening pull in the pit of her stomach.

Nick came to a stop a step in front of her and lifted the lantern until the class was more or less entirely lit.

Nick nodded. "They were," he said, "If you destroy a barony, it's not just the ones in charge who die."

Judy stared at the nearest skull, which looked as though it had once belonged to an opossum no more than seven or eight years old. The opossum's bones had yellowed and collapsed into a brittle-looking pile, but the teeth in the skull resting atop the desk were still a gleaming pearly white in a grim parody of a smile. It—and all the other piles of bones—had been alive once, and for nothing more than the crime of being born in Quimichpatlan Barony they had died. How many other children had died when King Oveja II ordered the barony razed? How many innocents had lost their lives along with the guilty conspirators?

_Or perhaps_ , a voice that sounded like Nick's whispered in Judy's mind,  _there never_ were  _any conspirators._

"This never should have happened," Judy said, looking out into the ruins of the classroom.

Time had swept away the identities of the dead, but her imagination filled in the gaps. She could picture her own younger siblings fidgeting at the desks, bored with whatever the teacher was explaining, eagerly looking forward to going to play. Judy could imagine clumsily-made drawings tacked onto the walls, done by kits with far more enthusiasm than talent. She could imagine a thousand little stories playing out in the tomb-silent space, everything and more she had ever experienced herself when she had been young.

"We can't change the past," Nick replied simply, and he lowered the lantern.

Perhaps it was her imagination, but Judy thought she heard something wistful in his voice, and she wondered what kinds of regrets he had buried in his heart. "Something like this can't ever happen again," she said firmly.

They had begun to walk again, leaving behind the classroom, and Nick shot her a sidelong glance. "And maybe if the City Guard was all like you, it wouldn't," he said.

Judy frowned, but she couldn't help but think of Lieutenant Colonel Cencerro and the book they had taken from his office. Nick had carefully packed it in his bag, and she wondered at what exactly the sheep had planned. What had he done with the residents of Phoenix?

They walked in silence a while longer, and eventually were no longer walking through buildings. They were in something that looked like it might have been a massive public square centuries ago. The ceiling was barely visible high overhead, which twinkled with the feeble lights of ancient alchemical torches. Massive stalactites, covered with blurred carvings descended from that ceiling, in some places forming enormous columns where they had grown long enough to merge into the floor. Planter beds were neatly arranged around gravel-lined paths, full of the dusty remnants of whatever flowers or shrubs had once been cultivated for public enjoyment deep underground. Unlike any above ground park Judy had ever encountered, the paths that led out of the park were tunnels going through the earth rather than open roads. There were more than a dozen, and all of them quickly became pitch-black where the light didn't reach far enough.

Nick pointed out one tunnel, which looked no different from any of the others. "That one," he said, "It'll take us to the fissure."

His voice was low, and Judy could understand why; the barony had seemed to get darker and darker as they traveled further away from the entrance they had used, and it was easy to imagine all kinds of horrors lurking silently in the hidden corners. "How are you sure?" Judy asked.

"The tunnels down here are all laid out more or less the same," he said with a shrug, "That one goes the right direction, and it'll branch off a few times so even if the main path is blocked we won't have to backtrack too much."

He spoke with perfect confidence, and a question suddenly occurred to Judy that she hadn't even thought to ask. "You've been down here before?"

"When I was younger," he said, with another shrug Judy suspected he meant to be careless but wasn't quite casual enough for that, "I'm sure you can understand why I quit doing it."

Judy nodded. She'd have to remember to ask him about that once they were back above the surface; although she hadn't known him very long she had noted that he very rarely said anything about his past, especially not so directly. "Then let's get out of here as fast as possible," Judy said, and they walked off in the direction Nick had indicated.

* * *

The tunnel they had gone down had been carved out of the earth itself, but it wasn't just raw stone. Signs in the Old Tongue—street names, probably—were carved into it where other tunnels branched off, and obvious care had been taken to make it inviting. There were alcoves for alchemical torches every ten feet or so, but none of them actually had torches anymore. When Judy examined one of the gaps more closely, she saw that it looked as though something large and wickedly sharp had pulled the lamp free, and when Nick noticed her looking he quietly said, "I did say there were monsters down here."

It meant that the only light was the lantern that Nick carried, which was enough to light up the entire width of the tunnel but didn't even come close to banishing the shadows in front of and behind them. The light sparkled and reflected off carved panels of cut crystal set into the walls, arranged into abstract mosaics that somehow vaguely reminded Judy of plants and vines. In some places, the little chips of crystal had fallen out of the wall, leaving behind yawning voids. Every now and then, they came across delicate piles of bones that had unmistakably belonged to bats, the distinctively elongated finger bones crumbling into pieces. Otherwise, the tunnel was clear, and it eventually opened up into a wider space.

It might have been another public park like the one that they had left to enter the tunnel, but if it had once had alchemical torches set into the ceiling they had long-since failed. Or been removed by whatever had pulled out the lights in the tunnel, but Judy didn't see any point in dwelling on that. Nick brought the lantern higher, and they carefully set off across the cavernous space. The floor was tiled in interlocking geometric patterns, but it was all that was visible; once they had gone far enough in that she couldn't see the tunnel they had come from Judy knew she'd never find her way back without a light. Judy felt a twinge of envy at Nick's apparently flawless sense of direction even without the sun, stars, or a compass to navigate by, but she pushed it aside. After all, she had the next best thing to having his sense of direction. She had him.

Nick was apparently making an effort to move quietly, and Judy did the same as they slowly crossed the space. Judy kept waiting for a wall to become visible, but one didn't appear, as though they had stumbled across a never-ending plain.

"Nick," something suddenly said in Judy's voice.

Judy froze. She hadn't said anything, but whatever had spoken had perfectly imitated her. "Nick?" Judy asked, "What was that?"

The light that the lantern threw off, bright though it was, only formed a little bubble of light around them, illuminating nothing more than the beautiful floor and motes of dust in the air. The voice had come from within that darkness, perhaps a hundred yards from where they were if she was judging the distance from sound alone correctly. "Ehecatls," Nick said, and then before she could ask him what that meant, he added, "They're like flying snakes, if snakes hunted in packs. They don't like light, though, so we'll be fine."

"And they can talk?" Judy asked.

"No more than a bird can. It's just imitation," Nick said, shrugging.

"We'll be fine," a voice came again, speaking in Nick's voice.

To Judy's sensitive ears, it sounded as though the thing—the Ehecatl—had moved between the times it had spoken. Or perhaps there were more than one lurking about. No matter how she strained her eyes, she couldn't see anything. But was it her imagination, or could she hear a rustling papery sound, like the scales of some enormous snake scratching against rock? "We'll be fine," the voice repeated, and then it chuckled, its imitation of Nick still perfect.

Judy shot a quick glance in Nick's direction. His ears were back, his face tense with apparent anxiety, and she reached out to squeeze his paw. "We  _will_ be fine," she said, as reassuringly as she could manage.

Nick gave her a shaky grin. "If you say so, Carrots."

They kept walking, and Judy heard that rustling slither again. "We'll be fine, Carrots," Nick's voice called out from the dark, perhaps two hundred yards behind them.

The thing chuckled again in his voice, and Judy could see the fur of Nick's tail frizzing out. She squeezed his paw again. "We've got a light," she said, and Nick nodded.

She could all but see the effort it cost him to push down his worry, and he took a deep, shaky breath.

If the Ehecatls were following them, they did so so quietly that not even Judy's keen ears could hear them, and they didn't speak again. After what felt like hours, but could have only been minutes, the far wall of the cavern came into view. Much like the first park they had passed through, there were a number of tunnels set into the wall, but what was visible in their pool of light didn't look to be in quite so good a shape. The tunnels all had an oddly melted look to them, the stone having flowed and re-hardened. In some of them, thick columns of stone had formed that all but completely blocked them, and others were full of debris. The one Nick picked was reasonably intact, but the delicate little shards of crystal that had once been set into the walls like the last tunnel had pooled on the floor, mixed in with the stone.

As they continued down the tunnel, passing other tunnels that branched off in various states of decay, Judy gradually became aware of the musty odor of the barony becoming stronger. The sickly stench of decay was mixed with something primal and unpleasant she couldn't put into words, something unlike anything she had ever smelled before. After about half an hour of walking, the smell was so bad that Judy almost felt as though she would gag on it, and some part of her mind warned her that whatever had created the stench was something that had once lived and breathed. And, perhaps, still did.

They pressed onward, though, coming to another incredibly dark and massive junction point. When they had crossed about four hundred yards—Judy wasn't sure how close they were to the middle since it was too dark to tell—Nick suddenly threw out his arm. "We need to go back.  _Now_ ," he said, pulling at her arm.

Judy was about to ask why, but as they spun around she saw that the flame inside the lantern had gone out while the alchemical torch was still providing brilliant light. She remembered his warning about what that meant, that the air was no longer good to breath, and offered no protest. "We can backtrack to the next junction and take the one on the right," he said, "Don't worry, we'll get there."

To Judy, it sounded more like he was trying to convince himself that there was no reason to worry, but she simply nodded. She didn't feel as though she wasn't getting enough air to live on, but then again she had never suffocated. Perhaps it felt normal right up until the point where you keeled over dead. They were keeping a rapid pace, their nails clicking against the warped and wavy stone of the floor, when suddenly it shuddered beneath them. Nick was knocked off his feet, and Judy kept her balance only a moment longer before she joined him on the floor; she could hear the incredible grind of stone against stone coming from far below. Judy had never experienced an earthquake herself, but she wasn't afraid; they just needed to avoid being crushed by falling rocks or swallowed by fissures. A panicked expression had come over Nick's features, though, and Judy called out as reassuringly as she could, "It's just an earthquake, right? There's no reason to panic."

Judy saw Nick open his muzzle to begin saying something, and then the alchemical torch in his lantern suddenly winked out. They were plunged into the most absolute darkness Judy had ever experienced; it was as though she had gone completely blind. "It's a Nopalayotl!" Nick said, his voice suddenly high and shrill, "It must be levels beneath us. We've got to move!"

The shuddering of the earth continued even as Judy staggered to her feet. By the sound of Nick's voice she had found him and pulled him up. "Which way?" she called, shouting to be heard over the crunch of stones beneath them and the more whispery sounds of pebbles that had been shaken loose falling from the ceiling.

"This way!" Nick called, pulling her into a run as he set off.

In the pitch-blackness Judy had no idea if they were heading back the way they had come or not, but it didn't matter. The sense of urgency in Nick's voice was undeniable, and suddenly she wanted nothing more badly than to have light again. Even Nick's superior night vision didn't seem to be helping him in the complete darkness; she could feel him stumbling, pulling at her arm as he tried moving as fast as he could over the uneven and shifting floor.

The alchemical torch wasn't coming back to life, though, and they kept running as fast as they could before Judy's paw was suddenly yanked out of Nick's. "Carrots!" Nick cried out, "Help—"

His voice was suddenly cut off, and she heard a raspy choking sound. "Nick!" Judy yelled, spinning her head as she tried to trace the direction he had been pulled off in, "Where are you?"

"Carrots!" Nick's voice called, coming from a dozen different directions.

The word reverberated and overlapped, the words all sounding exactly like Nick. It could have only been an Ehecatl that had grabbed him, and now the pack of them was preventing her from telling where he really was. Judy dropped her spear and drew her sword; she had no idea how tough the monsters were but wanted her sharpest weapon. She heard something lunge at her, the air ruffling over its feathers, and she stabbed with all the strength she could muster.

The blade suddenly met resistance, and an unearthly piercing wail filled the air as the thing she had stabbed writhed in agony. For an instant she nearly lost her grip on the hilt, but as the monster twisted the keen edge of the blade pulled free of its flesh with almost no resistance. "Nick!" Judy called again.

The cry of "Carrots!" came again from all directions, but Judy heard something else.

Barely audible over the louder cries and the shaking of the earth was a voice nearly too weak and faint to hear. It had spoken a single word: "Judy."

Judy threw herself in that direction, crying wordlessly. She heard something lunge at her nearly too late to act and she swung her sword out. The creature she hit gave out a rasping choke and then there was a muffled thump as it hit the ground. "Nick!" a monster screamed in her own voice.

It was the most nightmarish fight Judy had ever been a part of, totally blind and with the ground shaking around her. She didn't dare think about how to react to the Ehecatls; she couldn't even tell how many there were. She could only strike out when the sussuring of their feathers told her ears they were within striking distance, and she swung her sword with almost no technique. The hilt grew hot and sticky with their blood, but there seemed to be no end to them. "You'll have to kill me!" she roared, "Let go of him!"

It didn't matter that they couldn't understand her; she refused to give up the fight until she won or was dead on the ground. The monsters seemed happy to oblige her, shrieking a horrible mixture of wordless shouts and things she or Nick had said, until suddenly with a popping hiss a light flared into being not even two feet from where she was standing.

Judy got her first glimpse of the Ehecatls and recoiled in revulsion; to say that they were like flying snakes didn't sell the true horror of them. They were perhaps seven or eight feet long, their bodies thicker than her thighs and covered with scaly gray feathers except their heads and dead white bellies. Like snakes, they had no legs, but they had massive feathered wings nearly the size of their entire bodies. The feathers looked almost nothing like a bird's, though; they had a too-perfect geometric appearance to them, more like something drawn with a straight edge than anything the gods had created. Their heads were the worst part of them, massive and wedge-shaped and a horrible mix of parts that didn't go together. The Ehecatls had wickedly curved beaks, like a bird of prey, but with the slithering forked tongue and fangs of a snake in an overly-pink mouth lined with wickedly hooked rasps. The heads were grotesquely scaly, red and almost raw-looking where their feathers didn't grow. A crown of gray and black feathers grew from around the transition point where the scales stopped and the feathers started like a crude imitation of a lion's mane. The eyes were awful; each monster had four, or perhaps two depending on how you counted them. On either side of the monsters' heads two eyes seemed to have partially  _merged_ , with two unblinking slit pupils in an immobile bulb of flesh shaped like a fat figure-eight.

Judy saw the light was coming from the gas lamp of Nick's lantern, and Nick himself was buried under a pile of the horrible monsters that seemed to be trying to squeeze the life out of him. At the sudden burst of light the Ehecatls all shrieked as one, rolling their bodies jerkily in agony as their lidless and horrible eyes wept milky white tears.

They slithered and flapped, squawking and making inarticulate cries of pain as they slipped and flew in hop-skips away. Four or five of them were dead on the ground, spilling slowly growing pools of blood, but Judy only had eyes for Nick. He stirred feebly, clutching at the lantern; Judy saw matches scattered on the ground around him. "Nick!" Judy cried, and ran over to him.

He flopped onto his back and smiled weakly at her. "Told you," he rasped, "As long as we have a light..."

He shuddered and didn't seem to be able to say more. Judy couldn't help herself; it didn't matter that she was splattered with the gore of the monsters she had killed or that she was still holding a sword, she needed to hug him, to be sure that he really was alright. After a moment, he gently returned her embrace, patting her on the back. She didn't want to think about how close he had come to dying, but she couldn't help that either. What if he hadn't been able to light the lantern? What if she hadn't been able to distract some of the monsters? Would she have been overwhelmed herself, and would they have both died beneath Phoenix?

But they hadn't, and she pulled Nick to his feet. The ground was still trembling, although not nearly as badly as it had been, and the alchemical torch in the lantern still stubbornly refused to work.

There was a moment—a perfect, shining moment—when it was just the two of them standing there in their little pool of light looking at each other. It was a moment unlike anything Judy had ever experienced with anyone else; Judy realized that she had never cared about someone in quite the same way. And from the way that Nick looked back at her she thought maybe he was thinking the same thing. "I—" she began, and then she saw that one of the Ethecals on the ground wasn't dead.

Its eyes had been blinded by the blood of its fellows, and there was a horrible wound in its flank, but it lunged at Nick with a savage ferocity. Judy pushed Nick as hard as she could, knocking him to the ground before spinning to face the thing. With a flap of its wings the monster changed course and caught her free arm in its mouth before Judy could bring her sword to bear against its throat.

The sword cut the Ethecal's head off with an amazing cleanness, and while its body slumped twitching to the floor its heavy head was stuck on Judy's arm. She braced the guard of her sabre against its yawning mouth and ripped her arm loose with a cry of pain; it felt as though she had swept it through a pricker bush. The creature's head tumbled to the ground and Judy looked to Nick. "Are you alright?" she asked, her heart pounding in her ears.

Nick stood up, wonder visible in his face even in the dim light of the gas lamp. "You saved me," he said.

"Of course," she said, "I promised I'd make sure you got out."

She was about to continue what she had been about to say when then there was a sudden spasm of pain from her arm. It felt as though it was burning from the inside out and she dropped her sword to clutch at it with her other arm, collapsing to her knees. "Your arm!" Nick said, and his voice was full of horror.

Judy looked down at her injured arm and for an instant didn't recognize it. Two of her fingers were simply gone, and her thumb was hanging on by a thread in a pulped mass of meat. Chunks of flesh had been torn out of her forearm in more than a dozen places, and in a few her skin flapped horribly. There were massive puncture wounds in her arm oozing something that didn't quite look like blood. In the dim light it was nearly black and horribly viscous yet bubbling with foam. Every beat of her heart was suddenly a throbbing burst of pain, and she watched her poisoned blood pulse and seethe with it in perfect harmony.  _Poison_ , she thought, and her thought seemed to be coming from miles away,  _Or is it venom? I never get those right_.

"Judy!" Nick said, his voice hoarse.

He had closed the distance between them, kneeling on the ground in front of her as he reached out for her. "S'fine, Nick," she said, trying and failing to bat his paws away.

Her voice sounded weak and unsteady to her ears, almost as though she had drank too much. It was a funny thought, and she could feel her lips twitch in a smile. There was no pain anymore; it was almost as though she was drifting off to sleep. "Leave. You gotta get to..." she continued, but she couldn't focus on what was supposed to come next.

Where was he supposed to go? The answer seemed important, but it drifted away from her like a balloon. Nick's eyes were wide, and she could dimly feel his paws against her back. He was warm and the ground was cold. His eyes were bright and beautiful and she felt as though she should have told him that. There was a lot she wished she could have told him. "Get..." she said, and it was barely more than a mumble.

The colors were fading out of the world, Nick's brilliantly red fur going gray as her vision dimmed.

"Get home," she managed at last.

Nick was saying something—shouting something—but she couldn't make it out. Judy closed her eyes and the darkness swallowed her.


	32. Chapter 32

"Lord Bogo?" Cerdo's voice came, somewhat tentatively, "I'm not boring you, am I?"

Bogo blinked. He had decided to start his conversations with the rest of the queen's council with Cerdo. Long years as part of the City Guard had taught him the value of making mammals wait; for some criminals leaving them alone to stew in their own doubts was far more effective than questioning them immediately. Considering that he reserved the strongest suspicions for the other two members of the council, he had thought that it made sense to speak with Cerdo first. Unfortunately, however, nearly the instant that the pig had entered Bogo's shipboard cabin, he had immediately started droning on. Bogo realized he must have stopped giving so much as the impression that he was paying attention to Cerdo's words as he went through his own thoughts.

Bogo quickly favored Cerdo with a very small smile even as he cursed his own wandering focus. There was no telling what a mammal might give away without meaning it, and he realized he couldn't even vaguely describe what Cerdo had been nattering on about. "Not at all, Lord Cerdo," Bogo, "But time is of the utmost importance right now."

Cerdo coughed awkwardly, his ears dropping slightly. "Of course, of course," he said hastily, "I understand, we have far more important matters to discuss than my own personal concerns for the princess's safety. If anything were to happen to her it would be catastrophic for the—but there I go again. Please, Lord Bogo, ask me anything you want."

The pig folded his arms across his ample belly and settled into his chair, which creaked under his considerable girth. Bogo forced aside his own irritation with himself and said the words he had agonized over, taking care to ensure his face was as neutral as possible. "The two attacks on the princess would not have been possible without help from inside the palace."

He watched Cerdo carefully, but the pig didn't appear to think he was being accused of treason; he simply nodded slowly. "And you suspect that Jaime of the Tecuani Barony did not act alone," Cerdo said, his pudgy face creasing in a frown.

"I do," Bogo said, "Which makes for a very limited pool of suspects."

"Myself, Lord Corazón, and Lady Cencerro," Cerdo said, nodding again, "And you, I suppose, although of course you know your own heart."

Bogo relaxed infinitesimally. He had expected that at least one of the members of the council would suggest that he had been involved, and even leaving aside the fact that it was not an unreasonable suspicion—he really did have the most knowledge that would help an assassination attempt succeed—it made what he planned next seem more plausible. "Indeed I do," Bogo said.

Cerdo had worn a thin smile as he suggested the possibility that Bogo was a conspirator, but from the careful way the pig was studying him Bogo suspected that Cerdo really did think it might be possible. "But the queen does not," Bogo continued, "Her trust in me is not absolute. My trust in you and the other members of the council isn't absolute either."

Bogo spoke the words as bluntly as he could, interlacing his thick fingers atop his desk as he stared into Cerdo's eyes. "But I do have the measure of each of you," he said.

Cerdo blinked, and for the first time Bogo would have sworn he looked somewhat nervous. "What would you ask of me?" he asked, spreading his arms beseechingly.

On Corazón, the same gesture would have been impressive and expansive, giving the lion an air of serious consideration. On Cerdo, it merely made him look confused. "To put it bluntly, I can't watch all of you at once. And the queen needs someone to watch me. Once we're on the road to Phoenix, I'll have a rotating series of guards assigned to the princess. At all times, there will be guards from two of the four groups."

"The City Guard, my personal guardsmammals, Corazón's guards, and Cencerro's," Cerdo said.

Bogo nodded. The major problem he had foreseen with any trap he could lay was the possibility that two or more of the council members might be collaborating together. He had initially considered feeding all of them conflicting information, and then seeing who if anyone acted on something only they knew, but his plan would have been obvious if his suspects compared notes. It was another one of the rules of interrogation he had learned; if you capture multiple suspects for a single crime, don't let them speak to each other. Lie to them, make them worry that their partners would betray them, and they tended to seize the opportunity to preemptively betray. Unfortunately, he didn't think it was possible to completely restrict the council members for interacting with each other; no matter how closely they were watched they might use intermediaries or innocuous-sounding code phrases.

The plan he had settled on, therefore, would rely on the fact that they might conspire together. In arranging the guard schedule as he had, each pair would have the opportunity to communicate and plot whatever they wished. What they didn't know, however, was that he would also arrange for there to be apparent gaps where each council member alone would have access to the princess.

It was a breathtakingly risky plan, one of the sort he would never have authorized were the situation not so desperate. It was far from a perfect plan—no matter how carefully things were set up they could always go awry—but in a way having the culprit realize they were being led into a trap was not an entirely bad outcome. If it did nothing more than stop them from making an attempt before the princess and the queen were back in the palace and whatever was happening in Phoenix had been addressed, he would consider it a victory.

"So your idea is for us to watch each other," Cerdo said, "That seems rather wise, all things considered."

That, at least, was classic Cerdo—pompous and a touch obsequious. "I appreciate your support," Bogo said, and it was a testament to long years on the job that it actually sounded sincere rather than sarcastic.

"I'll begin making arrangements once I have the schedule," Cerdo said, and Bogo pushed a piece of paper across his desk as he rose.

Cerdo grabbed it and stood. "I'll begin now," he said, holding the paper up to read it, "Unless there's anything else?"

Bogo looked down at the pig, considering his next action carefully. He had done his best to lay out the bait, and it would shortly be a matter of seeing how well it worked.

"I'm sure you understand the importance of what I've asked," Bogo said simply, "You're smarter than Lord Corazón or Lady Cencerro."

* * *

"Lord Cerdo is not particularly bright," Bogo told Lady Cencerro, "His seat on the queen's council was earned by good luck and his father's hard work. I'm sure you understand why it took some time to make certain details clear to him."

The ewe smiled at Bogo's words; when he had admitted her to his office she had voiced her concern about how long it had taken him and Cerdo to discuss matters. Bogo doubted it could have been more than ten or fifteen minutes even with Cerdo's rambling digression at the beginning of the meeting, but some nobles acted absolutely appalled if the city didn't seem to revolve around them and their schedules. Cencerro wasn't quite as bad as some of the other nobles he had met over the course of his career—he had taken great pleasure after arresting the smug and obnoxious second-born son of a powerful lord for the fifth time and then watching as the son realized his father was finally leaving him to twist in the wind—but she was far from being quite as pleasant as she liked to act. "Just because his father was good at making torcs certainly doesn't make Cerdo worthy of a noble title," Cencerro sniffed, "Not like you. No one can say you didn't earn  _your_ title."

Bogo idly wondered how Cencerro would respond if he asked her what she had done to earn the title of nobility that had been passed down to her over generations stretching back to the beginning of the reign of King Oveja I. He dismissed the thought with no small amount of effort; imaging her outrage disguised by a veneer of politeness was rather satisfying. "That's very kind of you to say so," Bogo said instead, "Your own efforts to live up to your title are well known."

"Nobility is an obligation, not just a series of privileges," Cencerro said modestly, humbly averting her eyes to the surface of Bogo's desk.

She was so short that her eyes were more or less level with it anyway, and Bogo nodded. "Something the queen and princess understand quite well," he said.

"We are fortunate that the gods have blessed us with such a queen," Cencerro said, "And with such a worthy heir to carry on her work."

The words sounded sincere enough, but while Lady Alba Cencerro might not have done anything to be born into her title she had done everything to get close to the queen. "Family ties are important," Bogo said agreeably, and his thoughts inevitably drifted to his wife and daughter, "You understand that suspicions on Lieutenant Colonel Cencerro may turn into suspicions against you."

Lady Cencerro laughed nervously. "Are you accusing me of treason, Lord Bogo?" she asked, and her eyes flicked around the room as if searching for an exit that wasn't there.

"Treason, or someone attempting to make you look guilty to hide their own involvement," Bogo said mildly.

He was somewhat interested that Cencerro hadn't brought up the counterpoint herself; he seemed to have gotten her rather flustered.

"If my cousin Diego is involved, that must be it! I'm sure that's why the  _real_  mastermind sought him out," Cencerro added quickly, nearly fumbling over her words in her haste to get them out, "If he is involved, of course."

Cencerro certainly appeared nervous, but she was a sheep and a rather small one at that. The queen's poise was, in Bogo's experience, fairly rare for her species, and Bogo suspected that "confidence" and "grace" were two words that rarely came to anyone's mind when they thought of Alba Cencerro. That, or she was an even more skilled political actor than her sometimes partner and sometimes rival Corazón, but he had never quite figured out how the ewe and the lion really felt about each other. Bogo suspected that Corazón would find a good word to say for a monster if it was politically expedient, but superficiality was to be expected for a politician of any sort. Cencerro certainly seemed more open, but Bogo had seen hints of her cunning over the years.

"Of course," Bogo said in his most soothing tone of voice, "You're not just the queen's closest adviser. You're also her friend. I know I can trust you, Lady Cencerro."

* * *

"I don't trust Lady Cencerro," Bogo told Corazón.

The lion sat up straighter in the chair, which groaned considerably under him; although he had a far more athletic build than Lord Cerdo the simple difference in species meant that the lion weighed much more than the pig. Bogo would have to arrange for more suitable furniture the next time the queen's barge went out; just about everything about the cabins had been designed with sheep in mind. He resisted the urge to shake his head to dismiss the pointless thought—where  _had_ his focus gone?—and paid careful attention to Corazón's response.

The lion smiled broadly. "She's got the heart of a lioness," he said with a rueful chuckle, "Certainly she's a reminder that smaller mammals are no less capable."

Bogo had to admire his acting skill; Corazón actually managed to sound as though he appreciated one of greatest rivals. Either that, or the lion had taken a bizarre romantic interest in the ewe, which wasn't something he particularly wanted to think about. Besides, it all came back around to what seemed like the only point Corazón cared about, which was his supposed passion for giving all the mammals of Zootopia equal opportunities.

"As you say," Bogo said neutrally; he hadn't forgotten that one of Corazón's prime examples for the supposed value of smaller mammals on the City Guard seemed suspiciously entangled in whatever had happened in Phoenix.

Corazón frowned slightly, but Bogo strongly suspected that the appearance of sadness was entirely manufactured. "I know you and I haven't always seen eye to eye," the lion began.

Bogo resisted the urge to snort; that was about the politest way he had ever heard someone admit to being devoted to tampering with his job and responsibilities. "And I know you must have your suspicions. Certainly you wouldn't be the commanding officer of the City Guard if you weren't paranoid enough!"

Corazón favored Bogo with a winning smile, which quickly and smoothly left the lion's face when Bogo gave him no reaction. "So tell me, Lord Bogo, what must I do to earn your trust?"

"Do you know anything about Judy of Totchli Barony?" Bogo asked suddenly.

He hadn't planned on asking the question, but the opportunity had presented itself and he meant to seize it. If Corazón was perturbed by the sudden topic, he gave no sign of it. "Of course!" Corazón said cheerfully, "The first rabbit to join the City Guard. She'll have been an officer for, what is it, a few weeks now? I do hope she's living up to her performance in the academy."

Corazón seemed like a mammal proud of the accomplishments of a grandchild they didn't see very often, and Bogo pressed further. "Did you ever meet her?" he asked.

"I'm afraid not," Corazón said, and that too-perfect frown was back on his face that made it seem like a tragedy, "I did want to attend her graduation and give her my congratulations, but I was too busy to make it."

Bogo frowned himself, and Corazón asked, "Are you supposing she was involved in these attempts on the princess's life?"

"I'm considering all the possibilities," Bogo said, and then he explained the plan for guard duty.

* * *

Their arrival at the end of the aqueduct was just as anticlimactic as Bogo had hoped. It had occurred to him, more than once during the trip, that if a would-be assassin destroyed part of the aqueduct, Zootopia would lose its queen, princess, the entire queen's council, and a significant chunk of the City Guard as they plunged to their deaths against the hard ground hundreds of feet below. Keeping all of his top suspects on one ship had been something of a proof against that, since he had figured that none of the members of the queen's council would want the princess dead so badly that they'd give up their life for it. Whether he was right that one of them had chosen not to act on the water portion of their trip or not, they had safely made it to Tzitz Quit, the City Guard outpost that guarded the waterfall the aqueduct terminated in.

On his previous trips to Tzitz Quit, Bogo had always been impressed by the scale of it. It stood atop a massive pillar nearly a quarter-mile in diameter of the same white stone that the Middle Wall was made of, but where that wall was undecorated except at the War Gate, the pillar was elaborately carved and painted. Circling the massive column in a slowly rising spiral were bas-relief images of previous heads of the City Guard, going all the way back to the days of the ancient emperors. Unlike the royal palace, Tzitz Quit had not been razed and rebuilt, and the watchful eyes of long-dead jaguars stared out from the stone. Going higher up the column, the point where King Oveja I had started his dynasty was obvious; not only did the mammals depicted stop being jaguars, but the art style noticeably changed. The pillar was tall enough that even once Bogo died and had his depiction added as was tradition there would be ample room for the mammals who came after him; nearly half the pillar was still unblemished white.

Atop the pillar was a massive stepped pyramid that straddled the aqueduct, arching so far above the surface of the water that even the tallest ships wouldn't come close to scraping. Where the aqueduct actually ended, an enormous stone grate kept ships from going over the waterfall, the spray of water making incredible rainbows. A complicated series of locks and channels could be used to get ships to the aqueduct that ran the opposite direction so that they could reach the city-state's center without having to fight the current, but Bogo barely paid them a glance. His only concern, which he saw to his satisfaction had been addressed, was that there wasn't so much as a civilian dingy in the vicinity of Tzitz Quit. Although the outpost was normally teeming with dock-side trade and ships fighting to berth to unload and sell their wares, it had been completely cleared out for royal use. Bogo was sure there had been quite a bit of muttered complaining about that, considering how much the merchants were likely losing from the missed opportunities, but it was a negligible price to pay for safety.

When the queen's barge docked, the commanding officer of Tzitz Quit was already waiting. Although protocol typically demanded an elaborate reception for royalty when they traveled, Bogo had dispensed with all of that, and he asked the grizzled old sea otter the only question that mattered. "Any word from Lieutenant Colonel Cencerro?"

"He beat you here by an hour or so," the otter said, nodding, "Got him and the, uh, survivors waiting for you."

The captain had a look of curiosity in his eyes, and his slight hesitation over the word "survivors" told Bogo that he likely knew at least something about what Lieutenant Colonel Cencerro claimed had happened. "Bring me to him," Bogo said, "And I want to hear everything you know about what's going on in Phoenix on the way."

* * *

**Author's Notes:**

As is my wont, I skipped the author's notes for the last chapter so as to keep the dramatic impact of the cliffhanger it ended on. Before getting to the notes for this chapter, I do have some comments about chapter 31.

The Ehecatls are named after one of Quetzalcoatl's aliases. Ehecatl was a god of the wind and is generally considered to be an aspect of Quetzalcoatl, the feathered serpent. Way back in chapter 13, when Nick was describing some of the things that could be found under Phoenix, he did in fact mention "feathered snakes with wings," and chapter 31 finally showed them off. My goal was to make them extremely creepy, and I figured that combining snakes with birds was a good fit that also fit the mythology. Their ability to speak is something that many birds have; although parrots are probably the most well-known there are many species capable of mimicking human voices as well as an enormous variety of other sounds, from cell phone ring tones and car alarms to the click of a camera shutter.

Although in Judy's confused mental state she notes that she never remembers whether a substance is venom or poison, there is a difference. The difference is that venom is an animal secretion that is injected or delivered through a bite or a sting, while a poison is something that is eaten. A decent way of remembering the difference is this: "If you bite it and you die, it's poison. If it bites you and you die, it's venom." As the chapter ends, Judy is therefore affected by venom delivered by the monster's teeth rather than a poison.

Moving onto this chapter, I'll admit that I enjoyed the dramatic irony of Bogo telling each member of the queen's council something and then jump cutting to him saying the opposite to a different member. I've always figured that Bogo simply doesn't like playing politics but he's actually pretty good at it.

The initial plan that Bogo briefly describes, of telling each member of the council something different and seeing who acts on their unique information, is a real tactic known as a canary trap or a barium meal trap. A common example is for sensitive documents to have slightly different versions (such as through slightly wording or in hidden metadata), so that if someone leaks it the leak can be traced back to the original person the document was given to. The downside of this plan, which Bogo notes, is that if multiple people compare their information with each other, they can realize that a trap has been set. Such a thing happened in the real world at Tesla; Elon Musk provided slightly different versions of an email to various people in an attempt to find the employee leaking information. However, when one employee forwarded it on to others, all of those recipients could then compare that version to their own and see the trap.

The value that Bogo sees in suspects not being able to communicate with each other is the basis for the well-known prisoner's dilemma. In the prisoner's dilemma, the key takeaway is that in the absence of the ability to communicate with your co-conspirators, the best choice you can make for yourself is to betray them.

Bogo wondering at how Cencerro would react to being asked to justify her own title of nobility also shows something of a blind spot in his thinking; it doesn't seem to occur to him that the same question could be asked of the princess or the queen, both of whom were born to their position.

Cencerro's comments about nobility consisting of responsibilities as well as privileges is the key of the concept of  _noblesse oblige_ , or "nobility obliges," which suggests this concept. Of course, over the course of history many nobles have used it as a self-serving justification for their own privileges.

"Tzitz Quit" is named somewhat ironically; in the Nahuatl language it means "very small." It's really only small in comparison to the palace, since as described it's absolutely massive.

As always, thanks for reading! If you're so inclined as to leave a comment, I'd love to know what you think. Next week, we'll be getting back to Judy, and I hope you'll enjoy what's coming!


	33. Chapter 33

Pain pulled Judy back to a fuzzy awareness. She was on her back, the world dreamily spinning around her as if in sheer defiance of the abominable pain creeping up her arm. Nick's face, tight with worry, swam in and out of focus above her, but he wasn't looking into her eyes. Judy lolled her head to the side in the direction he was looking and saw that he was cinching his belt around her arm. The flesh beneath the belt was swelling like a balloon, and despite a fresh searing wave of agony the association made her smile.

The taste of strawberries on Totchli Barony Fair Day was so real on her tongue it was almost as though she was there, sticky strawberry juice on her muzzle and a balloon in one paw. She remembered being so small that it felt as though that balloon could have carried her away, and remembering how she had wished that it would. Judy could feel herself floating, and suddenly she was drifting as she rose above the Middle Wall, leaving the celebrations and all the fairgoers far below as the serenity of the clouds above beckoned her toward their embrace. Their cold and foggy hug pulled gently at her and—

The pain returned so explosively that Judy could not help but scream, a high keening wail that sounded alien to her own ears. It was agony, it was unbearable, it was as though Nick was ripping her arm off in degrees while stabbing it with a thousand knives. She fell back to herself, the pleasant spring air of Fair Day dissolving into the dim ruins of Quimichpatlan Barony. Nick was pulling his improvised tourniquet cruelly tight, and something red-black and foul oozed sluggishly out of her many wounds as it pressed harder and harder into her skin. "Stay with me," Nick was saying, his voice pleading, "Come on, Judy, stay with me."

"Hurts," she murmured, her throat raw from screaming, "Tired."

"I know. I know," Nick said, "But I  _need_ you. Are any of your quauhxicallis good for healing?"

Considering the question stretched off into infinity, offering some little refuge from the brutal pain as her mind slowly worked. Judy was only an ensign, and the uses of each vial on her belt ran through her mind. Bat, which was good for about twenty minutes of something like a sickening mixture of sight and sound to navigate in total darkness. Might have been useful fighting Ehecatls, if only she had had the time to drink the vial and it wasn't so disorienting to use. Cheetah, which would boost her top running speed for four or five minutes. Elephant, which would make her so strong she had to move by slowly shuffling her feet or she'd crack her head against ceilings just trying to walk. There had been one time, in the academy... Judy could feel her thoughts running away from her but was helpless to stop them. None of her quauhxicallis were any good for healing. But she had missed her chance, hadn't she?

She was back in the Phoenix City Guard barracks, her footsteps echoing ominously as she and Nick went through the silent building. There would have been more powerful quauhxicallis there, if only they had looked. She could  _see_ them, rows and rows of little vials, all carefully labeled and locked away. Why hadn't they taken any? It would have been the work of minutes to find the vault and have Nick force it open with alchemy. But now she'd never get the chance to make up for any of her mistakes. She was dying.

The realization hit her suddenly and helpless tears came to her eyes. Without a quauhxicalli and with alchemy still being blocked by the hateful monster levels below, Nick wouldn't be able to do anything for her. It seemed horribly cruel that the gods would make him watch her die and leave him alone deep underground. Why couldn't the Ehecatl have just stayed down? The depressingly orderly barracks were gone, and she was standing among the pile of monster corpses with Nick in front of her. "I want to tell you something," she said.

His face lit up with hope, and it made him handsome beyond words. "Is that so?" he asked, and the smile teasing at his lips was beautiful, completely devoid of the slightest bit of cynicism. Nick entwined his fingers into hers, pulling her close against her. Judy could feel his fur and the fine silk of his clothes brushing against her, and his paw was warm as he brought her chin gently up. The entire world receded until it was just him, everything else forgotten. "And what's that, Judy?"

The way he said her name, her actual name, made her melt. "I—"

"Judy! Will any of your quauhxicallis help?" Nick interrupted.

 _Oh,_ Judy thought vaguely,  _That hadn't been real either._  The pain returned in waves that made her tremble with the enormity of it. It was all-consuming, completely blocking out her ability to think. In the dim light of the lantern Nick's face grayed as the colors seemed to run out of the world, and then filled back in to its normal red-orange.

"No," Judy croaked.

The look of despair on Nick's face just about broke her heart. She wished she could say more, but her throat was stuck and her brain couldn't put the right words in the right order. "Come on, then, up you go," Nick said, and he heaved her off the floor and across his shoulders.

Judy's ruined left paw brushed against his side and the entire world went gray again, bursting with pinpoints of vividly coruscating color. "—fine," Nick was saying, however he had started his sentence lost to the pain, "You're doing fine."

He was panting with exertion as he staggered across the cracked floor of the barony, still lit only by the dim glow of his gas lantern. "Tired," Judy said again, and she was.

She wanted to stay awake; she really did. But anything would have been better than reality. Why couldn't she have been with Nick again, standing in triumph over the monstrous Ehecatls? Why couldn't—"You can't fall asleep," Nick interrupted sharply, "I need you awake. Come on, Judy, you're too stubborn to give up now."

"I'll try," she managed, and the effort it took was exhausting.

She  _did_ want to fight on. There was too much left to do; she had to make the City Guard understand Lieutenant Colonel Cencerro's treachery. They needed to be warned about the army amassing under the banner of the Betrayer. And  _she_ needed to tell Nick—"Listen," Nick said, "I'll tell you a story. But you need to pay attention, understand?"

Judy nodded weakly.

"Once upon a time," Nick began, "There was a fox. A very young one, smaller than you are."

He paused a moment, and something like curiosity tickled at Judy's brain. "Cuter, I have to say," Nick continued, "Lighter, too."

Some of the tension had drained out of his voice, and it made Judy glad. "I'll be honest, I was an adorable kit. Could you imagine me at age seven?"

For a long moment, with poison—or was it venom?—coursing through her veins and the increasingly distant throbbing in her arm Judy couldn't. And then suddenly it was as though Nick had lost more than two decades. He was adorable, his green eyes sparkling and full of honest cheer, his expression more mischievous than cynical. His ears seemed longer on his smaller head, his muzzle shorter, and Judy imagined him wearing the simple smock kits back in the Totchli Barony wore.

"I can," Judy murmured, her head bouncing against Nick's shoulders with every step he took.

"Good, that's good," Nick replied.

He was still panting with the exertion of carrying her, but something like hope had come back into his voice. The image of a younger Nick was fading, the reality of the pain setting back in, and he continued. "When I was seven, I had everything I could ever want. My parents..."

Nick's voice caught in his throat. Or maybe he was just tired of carrying her. "They loved me very much. They weren't rich, but they had their own shop in the Inner Baronies. Can you guess what kind of shop?"

Judy couldn't, but for his sake she tried. "Bakery?" she asked, and Nick chuckled.

"No, they were both terrible cooks."

"Quauh... Qua... Quauhx..." Judy began, but she couldn't help but fumble over the word; it was far too difficult to say.

"They weren't blood magicians," Nick said, "Not alchemists either, of course."

"They made clothes," Nick continued, "Good ones, the kind that merchants and minor nobles would buy. My parents always wanted me to take it over someday."

Judy's parents had wanted her to follow their footsteps, too. She supposed that was something she and Nick had in common, and she wondered what  _his_ parents thought of his career. "Anyway," Nick continued, "My father got sick. My mother and I would have done anything for him. You understand that, don't you?"

Yes, of course she did. Judy nodded again, her head brushing against Nick's shoulders. She knew what it was like to have someone she would do anything for. "We started with blood magicians, but none of them could do much more than write expensive bills."

There was a casualness to how he spoke that Judy didn't believe. "So then we went to an alchemist. The alchemist said he could cure my father, so how couldn't we try? It was going to be expensive, though. Selling the shop and all the stock would barely be enough to cover treatment with a philosopher's stone the size of a grain of sand."

The words were coming out of Nick faster and faster, and Judy found that she couldn't focus on anything but his words. The throbbing pain and spreading numbness were forgotten as he poured himself out to her. "He didn't want us to do it. Begged us not to. He didn't... He didn't want to sell my future for his," Nick said, and Judy could feel his shrug gently lifting her body.

"That's being a parent, though, isn't it?" Nick asked, "A good one, anyway."

Judy thought of her own parents. They had never been happy with her decision to join the City Guard, but they hadn't stopped her either. Would either of them made the same demand if they had been so sick? She thought they would. She had been blessed with wonderful parents, and she couldn't help but wonder if she had done enough to show them that.

"I convinced him, though. Even at seven, I had a way with words," Nick said, "I told him we could build it all back up again as a family, that he was more important than the shop."

Judy could see it in her mind's eye. Nick's mother and father were only vaguely fox-shaped phantoms, their features indistinct and shifting, but she could picture Nick. Small and earnest and unashamed about telling his father how much he loved him. She wished she could have seen that Nick for herself.

"The philosopher's stone didn't work," Nick said.

His voice was bluntly steady, but Judy thought there was a world of emotion hidden inside the words. She saw a sobbing fox kit and wished she could comfort him. Judy hugged the little fox tight, feeling his body trembling against her as he wailed. But that never could have happened. Nick was older than she was, and with the realization the kit vanished.

Reality washed over her like a cold wind, the illusion of giving comfort vanishing in an instant and returning her to the misery of her ruined arm and her own impending death.

"No one would lend my mother the money to buy back the shop, so she got the best job she could," Nick continued, "I got a job too."

"Alchemist?" Judy managed to say.

It somehow made perfect sense to her, picturing a young Nick dressed as he was in the present, the very building blocks of nature bowing to his whims. How could they not? It seemed as though there ought to be a connection between the loss of his father and his mastery of magic, as though his grief had somehow transmuted itself into the skill he needed. "You're really out of it," Nick said.

She felt as though his words should have been teasing, but they weren't. There was worry there, but that was alright. He just wasn't seeing the same connections that she was as her body failed her. "But I guess you're half-right. The Alchemist Guild wouldn't take on a fox as an apprentice—not that my mother could have afforded the fee anyway—but one of the alchemists did hire me to clean her lab. I think she—well, that's not important. It was beneath her apprentices to do anything so menial as sweep floors. That was a job for a fox."

Judy had never seen the inside of an alchemist's laboratory before, but she was standing in what could only be such a lab. It was a cavernous space, all filled up with workbenches covered in the same sorts of strange gadgets she had seen in Phoenix. Crumbling books and gleaming metal scrolls lined sagging shelves along the walls, complicated diagrams of straight lines and smooth curves filling up the few gaps not taken by narrow windows. The apprentices were the same mammals she herself had gone to the academy with. The cruelest ones, if she was being honest with herself, the ones who had taken delight every time she struggled and failed. The apprentices were dressed exactly like Master Rogelio's apprentice, and by comparison Nick looked particularly shabby. His simple smock was plain and unadorned, and the broom he used was taller than he was. But he was sweeping as best he could anyway, and if some sorrow had crept into his features there was still a sense of childishness to them. "You missed a spot," one of the apprentices, a tall and haughty deer, jeered.

The young Nick apologized profusely, but when he went to sweep the indicated spot the deer tripped him, exactly the way that deer had once tripped Judy. "Watch where you're going!" the deer said, and in Judy's mind everything seemed doubled, the memory of her own experience and her imagining of Nick's blending together until she couldn't tell them apart.

She was watching Nick, far away from her dying body, and that was enough. "They didn't think I knew how to read," Nick—the young Nick—explained, turning to look solemnly up at Judy, "It made them careless."

The complicated alchemical diagrams covering the walls exploded in complexity, shifting lines of text swirling around incomprehensibly, and the apprentice alchemists scribbled furiously away in their notebooks as they followed along. Nick wasn't writing anything down, but there was a thoughtfulness in how he studied those impossible notes that all the apprentices lacked. They were merely trying to keep up with the flow of information, frantically writing everything down. Nick was understanding it.

She could see him surreptitiously glancing up between sweeps of his broom, occasionally muttering wordlessly to himself. The lab shifted around her, the light streaming in through the windows fading away to nothing. In the center of the room, where there was a large flat and smooth piece of slate on a pedestal, Nick stood atop a chair drawing with a piece of chalk. His tongue stuck out one side of his mouth in grim concentration, his eyes narrowed in focus, and Judy saw that he had made a somewhat lopsided representation of what she recognized as an alchemical array.

The young fox's ears perked up and he turned as though he had heard her coming. "I'm going to learn how to make philosopher's stones myself," Nick told her, his eyes bright and full of determination, "So I can help mammals."

"Why didn't you say so?" a plain-looking sow asked.

The pig had suddenly appeared, completely ignoring Judy's presence. "Tell you what, Nicholas," the pig said, "If you prove that a fox can do any bit of alchemy, I'll show you how to make a philosopher's stone myself."

There was a cruel glint to the pig's eyes that Nick didn't seem to notice. "I can do alchemy!" he said proudly, "Watch, I can—"

"Why don't you show me tomorrow?" the sow interrupted, "I'll bring the rest of the apprentices. It's a difficult lesson we'll have to teach you. I'm going to need some help."

"Really?" Nick asked, "Do you promise?"

The pig smiled. "Absolutely."

"She was lying," Judy said.

The words seemed to come from far away, and when Nick replied his mouth didn't move at first. "She was," the young fox said, "It's a secret that only the masters of the Alchemist Guild know. The next day, when the other apprentices were around..."

A semi-circle of mammals had formed around Nick and the stone slab at the center of the room. With extraordinary care, he lit a candle and set it at one of the corners, populating two of the others with a pawful of dirt and a cup of water. He had drawn out a rather simple-looking alchemical array on the slab, at the center of which he placed a lump of charcoal.

"Come on, Nicholas, prove it," the pig said.

"Yeah, prove it and we'll teach you how to make a philosopher's stone!" another voice came from the crowd of apprentices.

They seemed to multiply around him, an endless series of voices calling for him to prove himself, but Nick planted his palms firmly against the slab without the slightest bit of hesitation and closed his eyes. The transmutation of the charcoal into diamond was more beautiful than any bit of alchemy Judy had ever seen before; it seemed to strobe with colors as what it was made of shifted.

"I know, I know, it's not a difficult transmutation," Nick said modestly, turning to face his audience, "But it's proof I can do it, right?"

The apprentices were watching him slack-jawed for a moment. And then the pig punched him in the face.

She was several times his size and the little fox kit flew to the floor, crying in pain. "You think you can  _steal_ the secrets of alchemy?" she asked, "You're a thief just like every other fox."

Nick was wincing as he tried sitting up, but the deer from before planted a hoof in the middle of his chest and pushed him down. "You  _do_ need a lesson, thief."

"Nick—" Judy began, watching the tears and hurt welling up in the fox's eyes as she tried to rush to him.

"I guess you don't need to hear all of it," Nick said, "Just stay focused on my voice, alright?"

The laboratory and other mammals faded until it was just her and Nick. He was an adult again, and for some reason he was carrying her across his shoulders in a dimly lit cavern. Judy felt as though she should know why he was doing something like that, but the answer refused to come. "After that, I knew that the Alchemist Guild wouldn't be any help. I only knew a tiny bit of alchemy, but I did have something most of those apprentices didn't. Do you know what that was?"

Judy considered the question as she bounced up and down on Nick's shoulders. She was utterly stumped, and Nick kept speaking. "I knew how to figure things out," he said, "Books on alchemy are rare and expensive, but there are ways to get them, and I knew I could work out what I couldn't learn from a book."

A bright light suddenly flared into existence, and Judy instinctively tried raising her arm to shield her eyes. When a sudden stab of pain exploded in her shoulder instead, she remembered what had happened to her arm. "Praise the gods, the Nopalayotl's gone," Nick said, and he carefully lowered her to the floor.

His lantern was glowing with the brilliant light of an alchemical torch again, and by its harsh light she saw him rummaging through his pack until he pulled out a number of what looked like flat stones that glowed pink with their own inner light. They were pretty, opalescent and shimmering in a way that made Judy think of fog hanging close to the surface of water. Nick delicately lifted Judy's left arm, which had swollen to nearly twice its normal size, and shoved a stone into one of her wounds.

The pain made everything she had felt leading up to that point feel mild by comparison. It burned as though it had been a white-hot charcoal, and Judy screamed until she lost all her sense of herself. When she could think again, Nick was carefully wrapping her arm in clean white bandages. The spots where he had inserted the stones glowed dimly through her flesh and the bandages, the pink hue of the stones becoming almost reddish. "They aren't complete philosopher's stones, but they're not incomplete either," Nick said, "I think I'm close to figuring out how to make a complete one."

The pain slowly faded until it was a dull roar, and Judy smiled. "You're a good mammal, Nick," she said.

Every word cost her a tremendous effort, and her arm itched as well as burned, but she somehow felt marginally better. "I'm not," Nick said, sighing.

He rummaged through his pack again, coming up with a package of chalk, a straightedge, and a length of string. "You wanted to help," Judy protested, but Nick just shook his head.

"How do you think I got those books on alchemy?" he asked, "No one was going to just  _give_  them to me. There was a mammal who wanted me to make him fake torcs, ones that would stand up to examination by the City Guard."

It took Judy's sluggish mind a moment to grasp the implications. Torcs uniquely identified a mammal; a mammal could be positively identified by theirs even if the rest of their body had been damaged beyond recognition. A perfect fake could let a mammal take on a new identity, and a mammal could only remove their own original torc outside of the Middle Wall. "Fermina," Judy managed to say as the pieces all fell into place.

"Yes," Nick said, keeping his eyes on the complicated array he was drawing on the floor, "I lied to you about her. She really is Alfonso's daughter, and I made her a new torc so she could start a new life."

He looked up at her, and his expression was full of sorrow. "It wasn't the first one I made for Big over the years, but it was the last. She didn't have anything to do with her father's crimes, and..." he said, trailing off.

"I'm not proud of everything I've done," Nick continued at last, "None of it had anything to do with Phoenix or the princess, but if you want to arrest me let's wait until we're through this mess."

Judy couldn't help but stare at Nick in the brilliant glow of the alchemical torch. Maybe she should have felt betrayed; he had lied to her face, tricked her into thinking she had jumped to an unfounded conclusion when it had been the truth. But thinking about it was so very hard, and she wanted to enjoy whatever time was left to her. "S'fine," she mumbled, "We'll talk later."

Nick looked up from his work, carefully rising to avoid his delicate drawing and walking over to where she lay. He gently felt at her left arm and his shoulder, and a frown touched his face. "Those incomplete stones aren't enough," Nick said even as he threw himself to the ground to continue scrawling lines and curves across the floor, "If I don't try something else, you're going to die."

Judy wasn't sure how much time passed before Nick looked up at her again, a nub of chalk clenched in his paw. Chalk dust had spread across the front of his shirt and there was a white shock of it in the fur on top of his head where he must have run his paw through it. "This is probably going to hurt a lot," Nick said.

It did.

 


	34. Chapter 34

Captain Del Mar was the sort of officer Bogo had loathed early in his career. The otter was unambitious, had every law and regulation memorized, and seemingly couldn't make a decision without discussing it first. Age and experience, however, had taught Bogo that while Del Mar would never be his first choice for a partner while walking a beat the otter would be his top pick for an administrative job.

His lack of ambition meant he was satisfied staying at the same posting for years, providing stability and a deep understanding of the role only strengthened by his incredible knowledge and consistent application of the rules. His need for discussion meant his own subordinates felt valued, the civilians felt respected, and the final decision ended up being well thought-out.

Frankly, If Bogo could go back in time he would hit his younger self upside the head for being an impatient and hot-tempered waste of a uniform, but he doubted it would have accomplished much. The arrogance of youth seemed near-universal, and Bogo winced at some of the things he had done. Del Mar might have never taken down a gang, but Bogo doubted he had ever gotten into a fistfight with a fellow officer.

Still, his grudging respect for the otter didn't mean that he had to like him, and as Del Mar led Bogo through the maze of corridors that made up the interior of Tzitz Quit he was glad he didn't have a painful reminder of why. Normally Del Mar was perhaps the most aggressively friendly mammal Bogo had ever met short of Corazón, his interest in others so strong that it seemed as though it had to be fake. Del Mar had a real talent for sounding as if he was genuinely interested in the boring stories and terrible jokes of other mammals, and on every other visit Bogo had made to Tzitz Quit the otter had been rather tiring to deal with for any length of time. Now, however, Del Mar was deadly serious and almost bluntly to the point.

When Bogo had asked Del Mar about what had happened in Phoenix, it had taken the captain only a moment to gather his thoughts before launching into his report without breaking his stride. "Tzitz Quit is the next best thing to having mammals on the ground in the wastelands," Del Mar began, "We have the elevation to keep an eye on the road between the War Gate and Phoenix—and the mammals and equipment to do it day or night."

Bogo nodded, gesturing for Del Mar to go on without further explanation. Bogo knew that among Tzitz Quit's many other purposes—routing water traffic, serving as a marketplace, acting as a City Guard armory and barracks—the primary reason it had been built was as a guard tower. The outpost rose even higher than any point on the nearby War Gate, which Tzitz Quit long predated. When the tower had been built, it had been as one of twelve towers evenly spaced around the Middle Wall. As originally built, the Middle Wall only had three gates in it, equally spaced, and Tzitz Quit had not stood near one of those gates. It had, in fact, been of little importance until King Oveja I—at that time merely General Oveja—had used his alchemists to blow a hole in the Outer Wall and made their way to the Middle Wall, where they again made their own entrance. When the War Gate had been built in the aftermath, Tzitz Quit had eventually gone from one of the least important outposts to the most important, and great care had been taken over the centuries to ensure it lived up to its purpose.

As Bogo knew, one of the ways in which Tzitz Quit had retained relevance as a watch tower was by always using the most advanced possible means of monitoring. The top of the tower had the finest telescopes with the most perfect lenses alchemists could make, and the mammals keeping watch included those with naturally good day and night vision as well as the quauhxicallis needed for even better vision. Del Mar's claim was not, in Bogo's experience, an idle boast; Bogo had fought endless rounds of committee meetings to keep Tzitz Quit's monitoring budget. The ruinous expense of maintaining guard outposts in the wastelands of the Outer Baronies had made those costs at least marginally appealing to the more tight-fisted mammals weighing in on budgets. For a few months, at least, before the arguments started again.

Bogo forced his attention back to Del Mar; the operating budget of the City Guard should have been the furthest thing from his mind.

"There hasn't been much in the way of unusual traffic the past few days," Del Mar said; mercifully Bogo didn't seem to have missed anything while his thoughts briefly wandered, "The usual mix of merchant caravans heading each way. There  _was_ a report of a lone alchemist being escorted by a guardsmammal, but Nicholas of the Middle Baronies makes the trip back and forth quite regularly. I've pulled the logs from the War Gate of comings and goings for you, should you wish to inspect them."

Bogo nodded, but he couldn't help but be interested by the way in which Del Mar had phrased his response. "You know this Nicholas?" he asked, and Del Mar nodded in turn.

The otter paused a moment to scratch at the fur atop his head, which was shot through with quite a bit of white, before answering. "Oh yes," he said, "He's something of a fixture on the route. A bit peculiar, considering he's a predator and all, but I've seen for myself that he's either an alchemist or the greatest fraud in all of Zootopia."

"What do you think of him? Could he be involved?"

Del Mar hesitated a moment again before answering, and he scratched at his own head so vigorously that stray clumps of fur stood up awkwardly. "He  _is_ the friendly sort," the otter said slowly, "I like to think I have a bit of a skill at connecting with mammals. Get them to open up about themselves, if you know what I mean. And Nicholas seems to have plenty of funny stories, but I have no idea how he turned out to be an alchemist. It's a bit odd, especially if you know other alchemists. You can't get them to shut up about their work and what they've done!"

He flashed a commiserating smile, and Bogo supposed that Del Mar's work probably brought him into closer contact with more members of the Alchemist Guild than his own did; that was certainly something he didn't envy. "They certainly love talking about themselves," Bogo agreed, hoping Del Mar would continue.

A frown suddenly flashed across Del Mar's face. "But if he was plotting something, he's been up to it for  _years_ ," the otter said, "If he's fooled me, he's fooled dozens of other mammals."

It was the weak point of any conspiracy; hiding something massive was more difficult than most mammals thought. All it took was for someone, just a single mammal, to notice something off and the most elaborate of schemes could crumble. "Please continue," Bogo said.

Del Mar took a moment to pick up the thread of his story again. "Since we lost communication with Phoenix, it's looked, well, abandoned. There are still lights, but none that move or change," he said, "And it almost looks as though there's an army in front of it."

Even a cheap alchemical torch would provide light for decades, so it wasn't surprising that some lights would be unchanged. An army, though, was an entirely different matter. "An army?" Bogo asked sharply.

He had secretly hoped that Lieutenant Colonel Cencerro had been lying in his message, but he couldn't think of a way for the sheep to have assembled an entire army in Phoenix without anyone noticing. Unless, of course, Del Mar was also in on it. "An army," Del Mar said with a nod; if he could tell what Bogo was thinking he certainly didn't show it.

"A big one, too, at least a few thousand mammals. Can't tell you much more than that, what with how far away Phoenix is," Del Mar continued, and Bogo was studying the otter carefully.

He didn't look as though he was lying; he looked worried, in fact. His face was nearly white with age, rugged and careworn beneath his fur, and his concern was obvious. "What's Lieutenant Colonel Cencerro told you?" Bogo asked.

"Not much," Del Mar replied ruefully, "Wouldn't say hardly anything. Doesn't trust me, I think. He just called the mammals he was with 'survivors' and barricaded himself in a room."

"I see," Bogo replied, his voice as neutral as he could make it.

Was Cencerro plotting a scheme or a victim of it? Was Del Mar involved or not? It could have all been an elaborate ruse to throw him on the wrong scent, or everything could be precisely as it appeared. Perhaps Cencerro was just the commander of the military force of a settlement unfortunate enough to be attacked by barbarians. Perhaps Del Mar was just the loyal commander of a watchtower. But then again, perhaps not.

"It looks bad," Del Mar said, so quietly that Bogo almost didn't notice, and then the otter added a bit louder, "If we can't trust each other, we're not really an army anymore, are we?"

Was Del Mar simply voicing his very reasonable concern, or was he probing Bogo for weakness? If it was the latter, Bogo had to admit that he had rarely felt weaker. His neat and orderly world had all been upended, and the pieces seemed to be refusing to go back where they had been. He wondered if the mammals who had fought for the emperor when King Oveja I had established his lineage had felt the same. Being blindsided by something they could have never seen coming, how had they reacted? They had lost, of course, and some part of Bogo couldn't help but wonder if he would too.

But it wouldn't do to tell a subordinate officer his fears, even if he hadn't held vague suspicions about that officer's loyalty. Instead, Bogo simply said, "We're an army until the queen says we're not."

Del Mar nodded vigorously, and Bogo couldn't tell if the look of relief on his face was genuine or simply for his own benefit. They walked in silence the rest of the way to the room that Cencerro had claimed for himself; if there was one thing Tzitz Quit was absolutely not lacking it was space. The hallways were all incredibly wide and tall, stone floors worn almost as smooth as glass from millennia of use, and Bogo wouldn't have been surprised to learn that every room in the watchtower had been repurposed dozens of times each over the ages. The signs of construction and modification were everywhere, from spots in the walls where the ghostly outlines of doors that no longer existed stood to the ever-so-slightly mismatched alchemical torches set into the ceiling. When they did finally stop, it was in front of an unremarkable wooden door, splintering slightly at the bottom; the way Tzitz Quit was laid out it could have just as easily been a broom closet as a ballroom. None of the interior rooms had windows to let in natural lighting, and getting lost seemed more inevitable than possible. "Just through here, sir," Del Mar said, gesturing at the door.

"Thank you, Captain," Bogo replied.

If the otter's eyes hadn't been on him, Bogo might have taken a deep breath to steady himself. He wasn't worried, precisely, or even on the edge of panic. Not that panic was a feeling he was used to; with the exception of the time the midwife had burst into his office, stumbling over her words, while Maria was pregnant he wasn't sure he could name the last time he had felt it. He was concerned, though, and not just about what Diego Cencerro would say. Were his own abilities, with his increasingly wandering attention, up to the task before him?

Bogo repressed a shrug as he pulled the door open. So long as he had the queen's trust, he would do the best he could for as long as he could until he was either dead or dismissed. With that grim thought, he stepped into the room.

* * *

The total population of Phoenix was—or rather, had been—about seven thousand mammals according to the last census that Bogo had seen. Seven thousand mammals, ranging in size from shrews and voles to elephants and giraffes, with a diversity of species that rivaled the Inner and Middle Baronies. Seven thousand mammals, each with their own hopes and dreams and fears.

There were fifteen mammals in the room.

They didn't even fill one corner, all of them huddled together silent and wide-eyed as though nothing else existed. All of them, at least, except for Diego Cencerro. While Bogo had only met the sheep a few times, he had made a lasting impression. Part of it was because one of the simple but useful tricks he had learned on the way from ensign to captain general was the value in remembering names and faces. Most of it, though, was because the sheep was always so fastidious about his appearance. Bogo had seen illustrations in City Guard instructional booklets that looked less perfectly put together than the lieutenant colonel usually did.

The sheep standing before him was a mess. His armor was dinged and scraped, his quilted red tunic underneath it torn in places and covered with travel dust. The feathers on his bracelet were broken and filthy, drooping sadly. Cencerro seemed to have lost a chunk of one ear, a filthy blood-soaked bandage doing little to hide the missing wedge, and dried blood was caked into the closely-shaved wool of his neck. Cencerro's eyes were dull and haunted-looking, the flesh underneath them puffy and black. Even his normally pinkish skin, although still visible under his wool, looked gray.

It seemed to take Cencerro visible effort to pull himself up to attention as Bogo entered; even the ram's normally perfect posture wasn't quite up to its usual standard. "I have a report for you, Captain General," Cencerro said, and his voice was raspy and cracked, "There are chairs, if you'd like to sit."

The sheep gestured at a nearby chair; the room he had taken over was evidently a meeting room of some sort—intended for the guilds either too poor or too frugal to build their own hall, most likely—and it was dominated by a massive circular table and an array of chairs in all different sizes to let mammals sit more or less at eye level with each other no matter their species. None of the fourteen survivors Cencerro had brought with him were sitting at the table; all of them, including three members of the Phoenix City Guard who looked even more battered than the ram, were simply sitting on the floor in one corner.

Bogo took the offered seat, but Cencerro remained standing, even though he looked as though anything might make him keel over. Some of Cencerro's slavish devotion to regulation and protocol had remained, then. "Be seated," Bogo ordered, and Cencerro all but collapsed into a chair.

"Your report please," Bogo said nearly the instant the sheep sat; he wasn't entirely unsympathetic to Cencerro's apparent exhaustion, but he was in no mood to wait.

Cencerro licked at his lips, and then his face went oddly still. He still looked tired beyond all imagining, but more like a sculpture than an actual mammal, he was so motionless. At last, he began speaking, his voice nearly perfectly flat and expressionless. "It all began when Ensign Judy of the Totchli Barony escorted the alchemist fox to Phoenix," he said, each word coming out slowly.

"Ensign Totchli then joined the Phoenix City Guard's search for the blood magician we had received word of," Cencerro continued, "I had every qualified mammal scouring the city for the wolf and the tigress. The fox alchemist—Nicholas of the Middle Baronies, that is—had been escorted to Phoenix to put in a bid on a public project. Water purification."

Cencerro's words were clipped and still emotionless, but the sheep had never been particularly expressive. "Finding the blood magicians was our top priority, but I still had a small force responsible for responding to normal crimes. When there was a report of a struggle at a book seller who specialized in tomes on alchemy and blood magic, it seemed possible there might be some connection to the blood magicians we sought. The officers who were first to the scene reported finding the fox covered in blood and the proprietor dead. He was arrested and brought to Phoenix's anti-alchemy cell for questioning. He maintained his innocence, even when I questioned him personally. He was..."

Cencerro's face briefly contorted; it seemed difficult for him to say the next few words. "He might have been telling the truth. It's possible he was framed as a distraction, to make us waste resources trying to find a connection between him and the blood magicians that didn't exist while depriving us of an alchemist who might have helped fend the barbarians off."

Bogo couldn't help but note that not a single one of the fourteen mammals huddled in the corner of the room was a fox or a bunny, and he was curious as to why. "Not even an hour after I questioned him, barbarians came pouring out of the ground. There are dozens of access points into the ruins of Quimichpatlan Barony that we know—that we  _knew_ —of, and probably dozens more that we didn't. The City Guard was spread too thin searching. We were caught totally unprepared," Cencerro said.

"They fought under the banner of the Betrayer," Cencerro said, but before he could continue Bogo interrupted for the first time.

"The Betrayer?" Bogo said, "Are you sure?"

"Positive," Cencerro said, nodding.

"It was fighting like I've never seen," Cencerro continued, and his voice sounded as haunting to Bogo's ears as it likely would have sounded had there been any emotion to it, "Torcs in Phoenix don't function, you know. It was a slaughter, thousands of barbarians against us. Killing mammals in the most brutal ways possible, laughing and speaking their strange tongue."

"Did you see the leader of the barbarians?" Bogo asked.

His words sounded surprisingly calm to his own ears. But the cold certainty that Cencerro spoke with, and the confirmation of the existence of an army from Del Mar's observations made it feel oppressively true. Bogo would have to be the first mammal in centuries to fight off invaders from outside Zootopia, and he needed as much information as possible.

Cencerro shook his head. "No. But I did see the two blood magicians we were looking for helping the barbarians. I rallied as many mammals as I could, and we fought our way to the bridge. Master Rogelio—he was Phoenix's lone member of the Alchemist Guild—stayed back with his apprentice to destroy the bridge after as many residents as possible had evacuated."

Cencerro fell silent, and Bogo considered him carefully. Phoenix only had a few hundred members of the City Guard, and it certainly sounded plausible to him that a surprise attack from underground could have been more a slaughter than a battle. That mammals might take advantage of the ruins of the barony Phoenix had been built on top of to get to the settlement certainly made sense; everything Cencerro had said had the ring of truth to it.

And yet, he couldn't help but wonder what the barbarians had been trying to accomplish and how they had come into contact with blood magicians. "What happened to the fox and the bunny?" Bogo asked, instead choosing to go with questions he thought Cencerro was more likely to be able to answer.

"Ensign Totchli volunteered to stay behind and protect Master Rogelio to cover our escape," Cencerro said, "I have to believe she died an honorable death with the other defenders."

It was an unexpectedly charitable sentiment from the notoriously sentiment-free sheep, and Bogo couldn't help but wonder if it was true. It seemed absurd to think that a bunny could be so brave as to stay behind and fight a hopeless battle. Her sacrifice hadn't even saved a dozen civilians, but it was to the highest ideals of the City Guard that she had given her life anyway. Perhaps Bogo had misjudged her.

Or perhaps it had been a ruse, either meant to trick Cencerro or as part of a trick he was in on. That certainly seemed more plausible than for a timid little bunny to have such an outsized devotion to protecting civilians. "I don't know what happened to the fox. He was in an anti-alchemy cell when the attack started, and I didn't see him while we were fighting our way out," Cencerro continued.

That was, to Bogo's mind, significantly more worrisome. The fox had either died an unfortunate death, the victim of circumstance, or he had been involved in the plot and had never been in any danger. It certainly seemed suggestive that the barbarians fought under the Betrayer's banner; could this alchemist be a descendant of that long-dead fox? Then again, perhaps he had been framed for precisely that reason.

Cencerro had provided Bogo with more questions than he had answers, but one thing was absolutely clear: the situation in Phoenix demanded a response. It made Bogo's decision easy to make, whether Cencerro was lying or not. "I brought an army to deal with the problem," Bogo said, "And you're coming with."

Bogo thought Cencerro might have grown grayer under his wool, but the sheep didn't say anything for a long moment. "When do we leave, Captain General?"

Bogo didn't even pause before answering.

"Now."

* * *

**Author's Notes:**

I tried something a bit different with chapter 33; as Judy has venom coursing through her veins and a terrible injury to her arm, the narration is a bit disjointed as she bounces between reality and her imagination. When Nick tells his story, it's not that she's jumped back in time or is otherwise observing what happened; it's all colored by her own memories and knowledge as she imagines it. How accurate all of what she imagines is, therefore, something of an open question.

Chapter 33 does also link back a fair amount to previous chapters. Complete philosopher's stones, which are vividly red in color, have been mentioned a few times previously, as have incomplete philosopher's stones, which are white. However, back in chapter 13 when Nick was treating himself for the black eye Judy gave him in their sparring match, she noted that the bandages he was using glowed with an unusual pink light, which matches the stones he used in chapter 33. For the sake of distinguishing between the various types, in these notes I'll call what Nick's created as imperfect philosopher's stones, which are partway between incomplete and complete ones. As Judy noted in chapter 13, they're more powerful than incomplete stones, capable of much more rapid healing, but in chapter 33 Nick does at least claim that they're not as powerful as complete ones.

That Fermina was, in fact, Big's daughter Fernanda was something that several readers guessed; there are a number of clues pointing toward the connection. Beside the species and accent, Big himself claimed that he didn't know where his daughter was back in chapter 8. Several times now Judy has picked up on signs from Nick that were meant to be indicative of two things: one, that she was getting better at reading him, and two, that he was lying to her about something.

As for this chapter, I don't have too much to add.

"Del Mar" is Spanish for "of the sea," which struck me as an appropriate surname for a sea otter.

Although Bogo doesn't think particularly highly of Judy, their thoughts do sometimes run along similar lines; in chapter 15 Judy's narration also compared Diego Cencerro to an illustration from a City Guard rulebook for how to wear the uniform.

In chapter 13, Judy noted that Phoenix seemed large enough for a few thousand residents her own size before it started getting cramped. This chapter at last reveals a total population number, which I've assumed includes all mammals. Considering how much mammals vary in size, seven thousand residents seemed reasonable; the smaller mammals would occupy very little physical space.

Next week will go back to Nick and Judy; hopefully you still found this chapter entertaining! As always, I'd love to know what you thought!


	35. Chapter 35

When Judy woke up she had no idea where she was or how she had got there. The ceiling above her was rough stone, glistening stalactites reflecting the light of an alchemical torch that must have been on the floor. She sat up gingerly; her entire body was aching and sore as though she had somehow crammed a month's worth of exercise into a single session. Nick was sprawled on his belly in front of her, his limbs splayed at odd angles and his tongue dangling out of his mouth as he quietly snored.

Seeing him suddenly brought back her memory of what had happened. She remembered the attack by the Ehecatls and her arm nearly being torn off and—she spun her head to look at her left arm so fast that her head swam and she nearly collapsed back to the floor.

Once the dizziness had subsided, Judy examined her arm as carefully as she could. It was completely wrapped in bandages from the tips of her fingers all the way up to her shoulder—the bandages even went under her quilted tunic through the ragged edge Nick must have made by cutting the sleeve off—but she had all of her fingers.

Relief washed over her as she experimentally flexed her fingers, each individually bandaged as though she was wearing a glove; they felt a little stiff, but the bandages were on the tight side. The clean cotton of the wrappings was covered with what she recognized as Nick's writing, the letters of incomprehensible words and symbols looking decidedly hurried as they wove in and out of geometric lines that had been drawn with far more precision.

Judy looked away from her miraculously intact arm to the mammal who had done it. Looking at Nick, who seemed more as though he had collapsed rather than simply fallen asleep, brought with it the memories of the story he had told her. Judy frowned, trying to put them in order. Her recollection was dream-like, things that she couldn't have possibly seen blending with what Nick had told her to the point she wasn't sure she could untangle them. But she remembered enough that she thought she had the thread of it, from what had driven him to become an alchemist without any formal instruction to what he had done with his ability.

Which included his admission that he had done work for the crime lord Tlatoani.

Protocol demanded that she arrest him and either give him over to a beat officer for processing or bring him directly to a City Guard outpost herself for questioning. It was all very clearly laid out in the written code she had sworn to uphold; Judy could picture the exact paragraph that laid it out as though the book was in front of her.

And yet...

Judy watched as Nick shifted in his slumber. Any sly or cunning expression to his face had been erased by sleep so that she could project practically any emotion onto him. "Nick?" she said, tentatively.

He stirred again, yawning and stretching, and pushed himself into a sitting position before regarding her with bleary eyes. His fur was matted from how he had slept, chalk dust caked to him so thickly in places that he and his clothes had white spots. Judy could see he had fallen asleep atop a massive alchemical drawing, the lines somewhat blurred from where he had rubbed against them while asleep but still sharp enough to make out complex shapes and symbols that must have somehow connected him to her. As his eyes met hers, his expression suddenly sharpened.

Nick still looked tired—exhausted would probably be the better word—but his eyes were as bright as they ever were. "How do you feel?" he asked.

His face was uncharacteristically furrowed with concern, but there was something else to his expression that she couldn't name. Sorrow, perhaps? Did he regret opening up to her about his past? Judy pushed the thought aside. "A little sore, but you saved my life. And my arm," she said, smiling, "You're an amazing alchemist."

Judy held her arm in front of her, waggling her fingers. She had expected that Nick would be happy to see how well his alchemy had worked; she had certainly never heard of anyone but a master alchemist restoring such a terrible injury. Instead, though, his ears fell flat against his head. "About that," he said, and he leaned forward to grasp her left paw between his own.

Nick began unwinding the bandages from her fingers with an odd sort of hesitance Judy didn't understand. Just from how gingerly he did it she had half-expected to see something horrible, her flesh bare and covered with hideous scars that exposed raw bone. But her fingers looked almost normal. Almost.

All of her fingers were there, although the fur covering them was much darker than it normally was. She supposed that something he had used might have dyed her fur as a side effect, but as the bandages came clear of her wrist she realized that couldn't be it.

There was something  _off_ about her fingers; although they all moved when she tried waggling them they just somehow didn't look right, as though the proportions were wrong. There was something strange about the fur on her wrist and forearm, which was the same oddly dark color as that on her fingers, but it wasn't until the bandages were gone to about halfway up to her elbow that she realized what it was. The dark brown, which looked different than the rest of her fur, as though its texture wasn't the same, gradually gave way to a familiar red-orange.

Judy spun her paw around to look at her palm. Not only was the fur on it no longer white, she had pads. Paw pads, like no bunny did. But precisely like a fox. Or even more specifically, precisely like Nick.

Her heart was suddenly beating so loudly in her chest it was a wonder he couldn't hear it. Her mouth had gone completely dry as she couldn't help but stare at her altered paw in disbelief. There was no question, though, that it was somehow a part of her, her left arm and paw looking exactly like Nick's at a smaller scale.

Judy looked up from her palm, which didn't seem as though it was really hers anymore, to look at Nick. He pulled the rest of the bandages away but she didn't need to look to know what she would see. "I couldn't save your arm," he said, quietly.

He was averting his eyes, looking down at the ground. "If I had been a better alchemist, if I had a complete philosopher's stone... I don't know if anyone can fix—"

Judy didn't give him the chance to finish. It still made her head swim to move so fast, but she threw herself at him, wrapping both arms around his torso. He was warm in her grasp, and if things felt a little different in her left arm, what did it matter? She wasn't dead and she still had an arm. A very odd one, it was true, unlike any mammal she had ever seen before, but that was nothing. Perhaps she was now some kind of chimera, but the  _princess_ was a chimera and she was the heir to the throne no matter what anyone else thought. "You  _did_ save my arm," Judy said firmly, "And my life. I would have died without you, Nick."

He seemed uncomfortable in her grasp, and she gently pulled her arms away. "How did you do it?" Judy asked, "I've never seen anything like it."

Nick still seemed reluctant to look at her, but perhaps retreating into his knowledge of alchemy was enough, because he gave her the ghost of a smile. "I couldn't isolate the venom, and the imperfect philosopher's stones I made weren't working fast enough. So I... I copied my arm and about half my organs into you. After scaling them down the same way I did your sword," he said.

Nick gave a sort of half-shrug. "I got the idea out of an old book on chimeras but I didn't know if it would work," he finished simply.

Judy looked from him back to her left paw. It was still bizarre to have it so altered, but there was no questioning that it was a part of her. There was a line of demarcation about three inches past her shoulder where what remained of the arm she had been born with transitioned into the arm Nick had given her. The transition was somewhat blurred, gray and red-orange fur mixing together for a few inches, and there were some branching lines of fox fur that continued up into her bunny fur. Blood vessels, she supposed, with the skin above them altered by the alchemy Nick had done to connect her body to the new limb. "It's amazing," Judy said, "Thank you."

Nick shook his head vehemently. "I made you a  _chimera_ ," he said, "You don't—"

"You think mammals might hate me for what I am now?" Judy asked, "That they might think I'm a freak?"

He nodded. "Do  _you_ hate me for what I am?" Judy asked.

Nick looked up from the floor, seeming surprised by the question. "Of course not!" he said.

"Then it doesn't matter," Judy replied, "I was already the first bunny to join the City Guard, you know. I can deal with anything other mammals say."

She was rewarded with a smile from Nick. A genuine one, the warmth of which seemed to go down to her heart. "I don't understand how you can be so optimistic," he said, shaking his head, "But it must not just be a bunny thing since you're part fox now."

Judy laughed. "It's who I am," she said, and then she gestured at her left arm, "This doesn't change that."

"Your brains are all still bunny," Nick replied, and there was something of his normal sly expression back on his face, "That must be it."

"It must be," Judy agreed, and she stood up.

It took her a moment to steady herself; she wasn't quite as dizzy as she had been when she had first woken up, but her entire body still ached. How much of that was due to the venom and how much was due to how Nick had made her whole again she couldn't even begin to guess; she thought it likely that no one alive had undergone what she had. All the chimeras she had ever heard of had been created prior to their birth, creating a totally new blend of two mammals. Having one limb from a different species, even if it had been appropriately sized to her other arm, was rather unique. But she had meant everything she said to Nick. If more mammals stared and whispered while she went about her job, it wouldn't bother her any more than the stares and whispers she had already gotten while still in Zootopia's heart. Besides, when she was wearing a uniform with an intact sleeve she doubted anyone would notice.

But she pushed all of that aside. "Nick," she said, and her heart was starting to race again, "There was something I wanted to ask you."

It seemed as though it had been ages ago when they had been standing together immediately before the monster savaged her arm and interrupted her. Nick was still sitting, and it made them almost the same height. Seeing him there, looking into his eyes without having to crane her neck up, made any words she might have fumbled over fall out of her mind.

She kissed him.

It was like nothing she had ever experienced, nothing like what the gossip of her older sisters had led her to expect. Her nose was full of the scent of him, strong and yet with a pleasantly floral undertone, and the taste of him against her tongue was indescribable. For an instant she could feel him against her, the sensation so strong there wasn't room for anything else. The entire world was just the two of them again, but there was no pain, no monsters. There was nothing to keep them apart and Judy wished the moment could last forever.

And then Nick pulled himself away.

"No," Nick said, "No, no, Judy—Carrots I can't. You must not remember, but—"

Judy pulled him closer again. "I remember the story you told me," she said.

He went suddenly limp, undisguised surprise etched on his face. "You do?"

"I do."

"And you don't... Care?" Nick asked, his words delicate and hesitant.

His expression was heart-breaking. There was the usual somewhat cynical cast to his features, but Judy was sure she saw hope. Frail and small, but it was there, perhaps the ghost of what he had once had when he had dreamed of being taught by members of the Alchemist Guild. But if his life had taken that path, would it have ever intersected with hers? She couldn't be glad that he had experienced what he did, but she was very glad to have him.

Judy pulled herself close until her lips were almost touching his again, her fingers buried in the soft fur of his cheeks. "I'm going to want to hear all the details I didn't catch," she said, "But that can wait."

"It can?"

She kissed him again, and he didn't pull back until they were both out of breath. "It can."

* * *

**Author's Notes:**

It's come up in this story before that in order to create a new shape for an object using alchemy, it's necessary to either have an alchemical grid defining that shape or an actual physical object to copy. Nick used both when he made Judy's sword, first using an elaborate pattern drawn on a cloth to make the sword and then copying his own head in miniature for the pommel.

In this chapter, Nick's method for saving Judy is more or less the same as that latter example; not being able to transmute the venom into something harmless without causing more damage, he instead effectively overwrote Judy's injured arm with a copy of his own left arm (albeit at a smaller scale) and did the same for her injured internal organs.

Him noting that Judy's brain is still completely bunny isn't just me taking some artistic license. In many animals (and, notably, humans with our complex brains), there's something called the blood-brain barrier that effectively isolates the brain from pathogens. Essentially, there's a semipermeable membrane (more or less a sieve that keeps molecules above a certain size out) rather than a direct connection, and this has several benefits. First and foremost, it's a function of your brain's immune system; this kind of isolation means that blood-born infections reaching the brain are extremely rare, since not much can cross the blood-brain barrier if it's functioning correctly. An infection of your brain is a notably bad thing, since it generally doesn't handle inflammation very well.

In this case, it can be assumed that whatever venom the Ehecatls secrete is composed of molecules large enough not to be able to cross the brain-blood barrier. If it had, Nick's efforts to save Judy would probably be rather unsuccessful, or would at least result in some pretty radical changes if he copied over chunks of her brain with his own.

This change for Judy was actually one of the first parts of the story that I wrote; I got the mental image of Judy with one fox arm and then the story kind of expanded in both directions around that as I worked out what led up to that moment and what came after. There were a lot of revisions between that initial idea and the chapter that you just read now, but I thought it was a pretty striking thing to have happen. Rabbits do indeed lack paw pads (a detail you can see in the movie with Judy) while foxes do have them, which would be quite the difference for Judy to experience.

As to everything else in this chapter, well, I've always figured that chapters should be as long or as short as necessary. This one ended up on the short side compared to others, but as it's the end result of an enormous amount of buildup it didn't seem right to make it any longer. I do hope you enjoyed it, but as always I'd love to hear what you thought!


	36. Chapter 36

No army, no matter how well-trained, could be nearly as fast as a single mammal. It was a thought Bogo tried to keep in mind as his guardsmammals—his soldiers—prepared to leave the Middle Baronies. Tzitz Quit had been designed to repel invasion, after all, and the same factors that made it difficult to take made it difficult to leave. The pillar it stood on had a single massive lift that led from its base to the outpost, with the only other way in or out being a relatively narrow wooden staircase that had been replaced dozens or perhaps hundreds of times over the years. It was one of those expenses that lords always complained about, but Bogo followed the lead of all of his predecessors and refused to replace the wood stairs with stone ones. He knew exactly why they were made of wood; if an opposing army did invade, the lift could be raised and the stairs set aflame, denying them access to the aqueducts.

Of course, the knowledge that Oveja I had simply breached the Middle Wall and ignored the aqueducts on his path into the city's core demonstrated that not every preparation worked. But Oveja I had been leading a war of conquest, and he had left as much infrastructure intact as possible since anything he damaged he would have to repair later. Bogo, though, had no idea what the mysterious army under the banner of the Betrayer wanted. They might want to take over the city, as Oveja I had, or perhaps they simply wanted to destroy it. Not knowing what his enemy had planned made Bogo deeply uneasy.

As did the fact that he wasn't even sure who his enemy was.

None of the other survivors of Phoenix had spoken a word even after Bogo's interview with Diego Cencerro was done. It was strange, and some part of him didn't like it. They certainly appeared shocked—as he would expect any mammal to be after experiencing horrific violence—but something deep in his gut didn't trust the reaction. It was entirely possible that he was being too hard on the mammals; unlike the City Guard most Zootopians never saw violence of any kind due to the effectiveness of torcs, and even in Phoenix he supposed habit was enough to keep that mostly true. He himself would never forget the stench of blood from the first murder he had responded to, and that had been bad enough to make his partner resign. If members of the City Guard couldn't tolerate violent death, what chance did coddled civilians have?

But the nagging doubt refused to leave Bogo, and he had ordered Del Mar to keep the remaining survivors under close supervision rather than allowing them their freedom. He had couched it with a bit more subtlety, of course; he had made the order sound more as though he was concerned with their mental health than that he was worried what they might do. If the otter had spotted his true motive, he hadn't commented on it, which left Bogo with at least one concern mostly addressed.

One of his other concerns stood at his side; as he supervised the movement of City Guard members from Tzitz Quit to the ground, he wasn't letting Diego Cencerro out of his sight. He had to admit to himself that his suspicions of the sheep might be motivated more by his own personal dislike of him—and the way in which he had obtained the job as commander of the Phoenix City Guard—and the blood relationship with Alba Cencerro than by anything the sheep had done to set him off.

But Bogo believed in listening to his instincts even if he didn't always choose to act on them, and while Diego Cencerro hadn't done anything obviously suspicious that didn't mean he was trustworthy. Another part of his mind told him he was being ridiculous. Lieutenant Colonel Cencerro was travel-worn and injured; would he have really cut a chunk out of one of his own ears?

_That's exactly what he would_ want  _you to think if he did_ , a voice whispered in Bogo's mind, and he frowned. The voice was, of course, his own, and even as he carefully studied Cencerro his thoughts continued.  _Gangs do it to their members sometimes. And if they can stand the pain, a member of the City Guard could._

But unless Diego Cencerro had somehow gained the ability to read minds, he was blissfully unaware of Bogo's dark thoughts about him, standing near the base of Tzitz Quit and watching members of the City Guard pour out of the lift at regular intervals and take up formation on the grounds surrounding the outpost. He hadn't even taken any time to change out of his dirty and blood-stained clothes, and it lent him a somewhat tougher air than a sheep could normally manage. Despite the clothes, though, his posture was still perfect, his attention focused solely on the army Bogo was bringing down to the ground one lift load at a time.

"Do you think we have enough mammals?" Bogo asked abruptly.

Cencerro turned toward him, a slight frown touching his features as he seemed to consider the question. "To retake Phoenix, sir?"

"To retake Phoenix," Bogo agreed.

Cencerro was silent a moment, and Bogo wondered if his thoughts were going the same direction his own had. His force consisted of just over two thousand mammals, a mixture of the City Guard and the personal forces of Lady Cencerro and Lords Corazón and Cerdo. Two thousand mammals, none of whom had ever fought a war before, going up against an unknown force. Perhaps they really were barbarians, but other possibilities came to mind, each more outlandish than the last. A massive force someone had managed to put together in Zootopia and march to Phoenix without anyone noticing? An army of mythical homunculi created by an alchemist more powerful than even the masters of the Alchemist Guild? Something put together by blood magicians?

Cencerro spoke again at last. "I don't have a good estimate of the size of the barbarian army," he said at last, "They struck by surprise, when my forces were spread thin. Under those circumstances, even a small army can fight like a large one."

Bogo grunted an acknowledgement and waited for the sheep to continue.

"I believe we have enough mammals," Cencerro said at last, "But I can't help but be concerned that they made no attempt to chase the survivors down. It makes me wonder what they want."

The sheep's face was its usual mask; Bogo was forcefully reminded of how unemotional and detached the officer was. He was speaking like a mammal faced with an intriguing logic problem—like the one with a chicken, a monitor lizard, a bag of grain, and a rowboat—instead of what might be the greatest threat Zootopia had ever faced. Unless, of course, he had arranged the threat and was quietly mocking Bogo for not seeing that.

"What do you think they want?" Bogo asked, and he was genuinely curious.

If Cencerro was involved in whatever was going on, perhaps he'd accidentally give something away. And if he wasn't, perhaps he had seen something Bogo hadn't. There was one possibility he had in mind he wanted to see if Cencerro would suggest, and if so how he would do it.

"Phoenix has great strategic value as the point of the one opening between Zootopia and the outside world, and holding it would be of immense value to an invading army. Without alchemists to make additional breaches in the Outer Wall, it's a choke point they must hold or be beaten back at our leisure. Occupying the settlement makes sense if their goal is to conquer us," Cencerro said.

It was nothing that Bogo hadn't already thought of himself, but it was somewhat unsatisfying as an answer. If Bogo was in charge of an invading army, he would have followed Oveja I's strategy as best he could. Under that model, the invading army would hold Phoenix only loosely, with the majority of their forces committed to taking the rest of the city-state. To simply hold Phoenix with no further action was bizarre; they had lost any element of surprise.

"Alternatively," Cencerro continued, speaking more slowly, "Phoenix's most obvious resource outside its strategic position is the ruins it was built on top of. There are treasures down there we can't even guess at, so perhaps the invaders simply want something in the ruins. The Betrayer was said to have had a laboratory in Quimichpatlan Barony, after all."

Bogo wasn't sure what he thought of that theory. Even if the fox had held some kind of secret blood magic lab it could have easily have been destroyed when Oveja II ordered the barony razed. Or found and looted between the Betrayer's death and when the barony had been destroyed. The theory did explain what the invaders might be after, though, and Bogo considered it.

"Perhaps," Bogo said, "Any other theories?"

Cencerro laughed ruefully, and the sound was unnatural to Bogo's ears. The sheep simply didn't seem like the sort of mammal to have a sense of humor at all—something Bogo knew mammals also said about him—and it just didn't sound right. "None that make any more sense than those two, I'm afraid. It might be a trap, but I don't see to what end."

The possibility of it being a trap had weighed heavily on Bogo's mind, but the way Cencerro had suggested it wasn't exactly comforting. Admittedly, he couldn't see how it would work as a trap. Were there hundreds or thousands more warriors, hidden underground and waiting to strike in a pincer movement when Bogo and his defenders got too close? Or was it perhaps a trap intended for a single mammal? Had whoever planned the invasion known that they could successfully lure the queen and princess outside the relative safety of the palace?

It was enough to give Bogo a headache. There was, however, at least one trap he knew about that no one else did. If someone on the defender's side was plotting to assassinate the princess or queen en route, he meant to find them. "Yes," Bogo said at last, "It might be a trap."

* * *

Shortly after their not entirely comforting conversation, Bogo had brought Diego Cencerro over to meet the group of mammals he was particularly interested in seeing how he would react to. As they approached the tent that had been set up for the queen and princess while they awaited their army's preparations, Bogo kept one hoof loosely around the hilt of his macuahuitl; if the sheep tried anything he wouldn't live long enough to regret it.

When they were perhaps ten feet away from the tent, Bogo heard the familiar sound of the princess's laughter, and his grip involuntarily tightened. It had been, he realized, some time since he had last heard her sounding anywhere near as carefree. He couldn't see what she found so entertaining, however, since the royal tent was made out of cloth so richly embroidered that it was entirely opaque, with not so much as a vague shadow of the occupants visible.

In fact, calling it a tent wasn't quite right; that was far too unimpressive a word for what had been set up. A marquee, perhaps, more accurately captured the size and grandeur of the tent, which was larger than the apartment Bogo had grown up in. It was at least forty feet on a side, all composed of thickly quilted panels so perfectly aligned that the seams were all but invisible from a distance. Beneath the dramatically slanted roof of the tent, which was at least fifteen feet above the ground, and the wall panels was a cunningly made bit of mesh that would let air in but wouldn't admit rain. Two guards stood on either side of the entrance—which despite being a flap was still far more well-crafted than any piece of clothing Bogo owned—and admitted the two of them in short order.

Inside, the tent had a full office made out of furniture that was lightweight but still sumptuously carved, as well as a number of collapsible chairs so thickly cushioned that they looked as comfortable as a normal chair. Cheerful light was provided by half a dozen alchemical torches in beautiful holders hung from the pillars which supported the tent; even the pillars were richly decorated. The queen and princess weren't alone in the tent, but their company wasn't just Alba Cencerro, Leodore Corazón, and Esteban Cerdo as Bogo thought it might have been. They were arranged in a loose semicircle—which left plenty of space in the massive tent—around a curious sight. There was a large bird with the saddle and reins that marked it as the ride of a messenger, but there was no mammal on its back. Instead, on the thick carpet that covered the ground, was a little mouse laboriously shufflin three walnut shells around.

The bird, which looked to Bogo's admittedly inexpert eye to be some sort of hawk, was watching the proceedings gravely, its head cocked to one side as it followed the motion of the three shells until the mouse stopped. "Which one, Papalote?" he asked in his high little voice.

The bird reached its head forward and pecked at the shell on the far right. The mouse beamed at the bird, even as the princess enthusiastically clapped an instant before anyone else did. "Good girl, Papalote," he said, lifting the shell with a dramatic flourish, "Good girl."

There was what looked to Bogo like a dried piece of fish under the shell, and the bird struck at it and gobbled it down the instant it was exposed. "She's so clever," the princess said, "What's it like to be able to fly?"

"Oh, it's the most amazing thing you can imagine, your highness," the mouse replied, cutting a low bow before stroking at the feathers of his bird, "To see the world spread beneath you like a—"

The mouse was cut off by a delicate cough from Lady Cencerro; evidently the other mammals in the tent had been too enraptured by the performance the messenger was putting on to have noticed Bogo's arrival. "Ah!" the mouse squeaked, spinning in place to face Bogo, "You must be Captain General Bogo! It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance, milord."

The mouse bowed again, not quite as low as he had to the princess. "Carlos of Phoenix at your service, but you can call me Camoti."

"Camoti?" Bogo asked, feeling his eyebrows raise involuntarily; it was one of the oddest and least fitting nicknames he had ever heard. The little mouse looked as slim and athletic as a mouse could, wearing a set of riding clothes made out of fish leather dyed a deep black that made the narrow bib of white fur under his muzzle stand out sharply. Otherwise, what little of the mouse's fur Bogo could see was a soft brown without any signs of lightening with age; he guessed that the messenger wasn't past his mid-twenties.

"Camoti," the mouse agreed cheerfully, "And I recognize Lieutenant Colonel Cencerro, although I am sorry to say we have never met, sir."

The mouse's tiny features flickered in concern. "Oh my, are you quite all right, sir?"

If Diego Cencerro had noticed the little mouse's display of how clever his bird was or felt anything at all about being asked how he was, it didn't show on the sheep's face. "Fine," he said shortly, and then turned his attention to the queen and princess.

"Your majesties," he said, falling to his knees in supplication, "I apologize for my failure. That Phoenix was—"

"Enough," Queen Lana said, interrupting him with a wave of one hoof, "Unless you invited these barbarians into Phoenix, you have nothing to apologize for."

She spoke the words in a rather kindly fashion, but Bogo was sure that everyone else heard the implicit threat in it. If Diego Cencerro had simply had the poor luck of being in charge when Phoenix got invaded, he wouldn't receive any kind of punishment. If he was responsible, though, he doubted that the queen would be particularly merciful. "Thank you, your majesty," he replied, still on his knees.

"Rise, Lieutenant Colonel," she said, and he did so with what seemed like great concern for doing so in a dignified manner.

"Goodness, Diego, you do look quite a fright," Lady Cencerro said once he was standing again.

She spoke rather casually, which Bogo found interesting. Evidently, she wasn't going to pretend as though she didn't know her cousin, although even for sheep they strongly resembled each other to the point that it was obvious they were related. "Getting out of Phoenix was... difficult," he replied, his face still free of emotion even as he chose his last word.

"I'm sure," Camoti jumped in with a rather astounding lack of manners; although his torc was difficult to see on his tiny neck, it didn't mark him as a lord and he obviously wasn't a member of the City Guard.

Bogo thought he knew why the messenger was in the queen's tent, though, and what he said next confirmed his suspicion. "I had a much easier time of it, but there weren't any barbarians for Papalote and me to deal with when we left!"

"Now that Lord Bogo is here, perhaps you could tell the story again," Corazón suggested, giving Bogo a quick side glance, "I'm sure he'll find it interesting."

"Well, there's not much to tell," Camoti said, glancing around the tent, "But if you insist, milord, I'll be happy to."

He doffed an imaginary hat in the lion's direction before turning to Bogo. "Papalote and I fly between Phoenix and the Middle Wall every few days. It barely stretches her wings, a fine bird like her," he said.

As he spoke, he reached up to scratch at the feathers under the hawk's neck. Her eyes closed in apparent pleasure as she lowered her head to give her diminutive master access to her neck itself, and he fondly ran the tiny fingers of his paw through the thick feathers as he continued to speak. "It wasn't too unusual a morning. Aluisa and Darmita—"

"A vole and a jerboa," Corazón cut in, rather unexpectedly.

"Yes, milord, they are indeed," Camoti said, seeming a bit surprised by the interruption, but he picked up the thread of his story quickly.

"They had left before I did. Aluisa rides an owl, you see, so she always flies at night. Darmita usually has a bit of a late start, since her husband lives in Phoenix and they only see each other when she flies in, but I heard they had a bit of a fight the night before and she was in no mood to, ah, lie in bed."

Camoti broke off from his narrative to flash Bogo a brilliant smile. "Something I hope you've never dealt with, milord."

Bogo had no intention of dignifying that with a response, and the mouse must have read his expression because he gave a quick cough and continued. "There were more guards about than usual, and all of Phoenix was alive with rumors, but I didn't see anything odd myself. Poor Fermina seemed awful nervous about them; I told her I heard they were looking for some kind of magician and  _she_ asked—"

"Who's Fermina?" Bogo asked, a bit more sharply than he had intended.

Bogo had followed the significance of Corazón's interruption; a mouse, a vole, and a jerboa were the last three messengers out of Phoenix before the attack, and Camoti was obviously the mouse. It didn't seem as though he had seen anything of useful except whatever he had to say about this Fermina. "Another messenger, milord, rather new to it. She's been doing local messages and deliveries only—local to Phoenix, you understand—but me and the girls have been telling her the real money is in trips between the Middle Baronies and Phoenix. And with a bird like hers..."

Camoti shook his head. "Golden eagle just as gentle as you could like. The mark of a good rider, training their bird so well; it's why I've taught Papalote so many clever tricks, isn't it dear?"

He scratched even harder at the hawk's neck, the bird clearly enjoying it. "A golden eagle?" Bogo asked.

Pieces were suddenly clicking into place in his mind, and he thought he saw the significance of it. "Fermina's a shrew, isn't she?"

"You  _are_ the clever sort, milord!" Camoti replied, "However did you guess?"

"That's not important," Bogo said, barely masking his impatience, "Where did she go?"

"Oh, well, she decided to finally take our advice, I suppose," Camoti said with a shrug, "Left for the Middle Wall much happier than I'd ever seen her. And that's that, really. I didn't even see this army of barbarians. I'm glad, too, let me tell you; Papalote doesn't deserve an arrow between her wings even if I do."

He smiled at his little self-deprecating joke, but Bogo was already lost in his own thoughts. More likely than not, Fermina was really the daughter of Alfonso of New Quimichin. She must have fled to Phoenix, knowing that if she ever tried returning the City Guard could use her torc to identify her. Phoenix, though, was much looser, and far easier for a fugitive to get by without drawing attention to themselves. But what had made her leave so suddenly, shortly before Phoenix was attacked? And, Bogo couldn't help but note, shortly after an alchemist fox had showed up. And where had she gone? It clearly wasn't to any of the official aviaries in the Middle Baronies as she hadn't been on the list of the last official messengers to leave Phoenix.

Bogo had been confident that Alfonso had been telling the truth when he had interrogated him near the start of the whole matter. And perhaps the shrew had been honest. But might not it be possible that his daughter would want revenge for her father's arrest and imprisonment?

It was another twist at a time when he least needed twists; he wanted nothing more than for everything to stop turning along convoluted paths and start following some kind of pattern that he could understand. His army would be ready to march for Phoenix in no more than twenty minutes, and suddenly it seemed as though a key piece of the puzzle might be sitting in a cell near the city's center far away from his ability to do anything about it.

"I'll have a message for you to take to the palace, Camoti," Bogo said slowly, his mind racing to put together what he wanted to write.

From the significant look the queen gave him, Bogo suspected he knew what she wanted him to write. It was time, it seemed, for answers to come out of Alfonso by any means necessary.

* * *

**Author's Notes:**

In this chapter, Bogo recalls a memory that was first shown in chapter 8, in which an elephant was reduced to a puddle of gore by his torc. As mentioned there, the sight of it did indeed make his partner resign, and in this chapter it brings up the idea of sensitization to violence. While this version of Zootopia isn't exactly at  _Demolition Man_ levels of being free of violent crime, it is exceptionally rare. Add to that the fact that they don't have television, movies, or video games, the only real source of violence most inhabitants of the city would encounter would be printed word descriptions or perhaps drawings. Beyond that, they really don't have the media for depicting violence; plays might occasionally demonstrate violence, but it may be too obviously fake to be truly shocking. Whether that affects how they view violence or not, it's understandable I think that Bogo would assume extreme violence to be upsetting to normal mammals.

Bogo also thinks about a trend that I think makes a certain amount of sense in a world of assorted mammals: using ear notches to symbolize something, in this case gang affiliation. Quite a few mammals have ears so different and proportionally larger than humans that it doesn't seem too unusual that it might be a form of body modification they'd practice.

The creation of a homunculus—a living being formed by alchemy in the shape of a human—was a common goal of alchemists from about the 16th century onwards. The alchemist Paracelsus described a method of creating such a being by first fermenting human semen, placing it in the womb of a horse, and then nourishing it on a solution made from human blood. For reasons that I hope are obvious, this doesn't actually work. However, many alchemists labored at trying to artificially create life. Bogo is notably dismissive of the idea, considering it outlandish, although I suppose you could argue that the monsters under Phoenix demonstrate that the creation of artificial life is possible in this setting.

Bogo briefly thinks of a Zootopian version of a common logic puzzle that takes many forms, commonly including a fox, a chicken, and a bag of grain. The idea is that you have to transport these three items across a river in a rowboat only large enough to take one at a time, but leaving certain combinations alone is problematic. The chicken will eat the grain if left together, and the fox will eat the chicken if they're left together. I won't spoil the solution!

Bogo's macuahuitl was last mentioned in chapter 6; as described there it's kind of like a cricket bat with a razor sharp edge.

Papalote is the Nahuatl word for "kite," which seemed an appropriate name for a bird.

In chapter 24, Bogo knew of three messengers who had been the last out of Phoenix—a male mouse, a female vole, and a female jerboa. That list notably excludes a shrew, and in chapter 21 Nick claimed that Judy couldn't meet "Fermina" since she had already left Phoenix.

Camoti is the Nahuatl word for "sweet potato" which really is an odd nickname for a mouse with no obvious resemblance to one, hence Bogo's reaction.

As always, thanks for reading! If you're so inclined as to leave a comment, I'd love to know what you thought.


	37. Chapter 37

Everything had changed and nothing had.

It was the differences almost too subtle to notice that mattered, though. Judy was still walking through the ruins of Quimichpatlan Barony, Nick still at her side. It was almost the same as it had been. But he was closer to her now than he had been before, and sometimes his tail brushed up against her waist. It was nice.

That seemed like a horribly inadequate way of saying it, almost as though being next to the mammal she loved—and who loved her back—was no more than a sunny day or a tasty pastry. But it  _was_ nice, and if Judy didn't have the words to express it any better it'd have to do. Seeing the affection in his eyes when he looked over at her made her heart melt and wish they hadn't had to press on. It hadn't been easy to break that kiss, and the thought of what could have happened next seemed to do funny things to all the blood in her body.

Then again, neither of them was in any shape to do anything but walk. No matter how much Nick's eyes sparkled, their lids drooped more than usual and there was a weariness to the very way in which he moved. Saving her life had clearly taken much more out of him than either the bit of alchemy he had performed in their cell or during their sparring match, and she didn't know how much longer he could last before he'd have to rest again.

The thought of resting brought with it the wonderful image of burying her fingers into the magnificent fluff of Nick's tail and she pushed it aside, her ears burning. Judy might need to rest herself sooner rather than later, though; her entire body still ached, except for her new arm and paw.

It was with that paw that she caught Nick's and gave it a gentle squeeze. The feeling that it wasn't quite right had receded somewhat, but Judy didn't know if it'd ever completely go away. Sometimes it felt as if it wasn't a part of her, and sometimes it did. Grasping Nick's paw, her new pads made it feel almost as though she was wearing a glove, the sensation somewhat dulled.

He squeezed back. "New arm still doing alright, Carrots?" he asked lightly.

There was the familiar teasing tone to his voice, but with something deeper to it. No matter how he had phrased the question, Judy knew his concern was genuine. "It's the only part of me that doesn't hurt," she said, and Nick nodded.

They walked in silence a while longer, but it was companionable rather than awkward. There was still plenty that they had to discuss, but for the moment it was enough to simply have each other as they continued through the ruins. The twin lights of Nick's lantern remained steady, and here and there the ghostly light of ancient and failing alchemical torches stood out against the darkness. There was a certain sameness to the tunnels, so Judy had no idea how much distance Nick had covered while carrying her in her venom-induced haze, but she got the feeling they were proceeding far off the path treasure hunters followed. Thick layers of dust on the tiled floors absorbed the sounds of their footsteps, and thick cobwebs hanging from the ceiling brushed unpleasantly against the tips of her ears until she let them droop down.

As they were coming to a junction point, Judy heard a low grumbling sound that instantly set her ears up and had her heart pounding as she prepared to deal with whatever had made the noise, a sense of calm focus washing over her as she let go of Nick's paw and drew her sword.

And then she realized it had been Nick's stomach.

"Sounds like we need to stop," Nick said, a slow smile spreading across his face; he had obviously seen her reaction.

"It does," Judy agreed, and she poked at his stomach playfully.

Nick yelped and brushed her fingers aside. "Trust me, you don't want to get between a fox and his food," he said, still smiling.

While Nick started rummaging through his pack, Judy sheathed her sword carefully, treating it with the respect it deserved as her only defense. Nick had apparently been more concerned with saving her life than her weapons and her spear was probably still on the floor of the chamber the Ehecatls had been in. As she was taking her paw away from the hilt, a question suddenly struck her. "Am I going to have to eat the same kinds of food you do?" she asked.

He had said that he had copied some of his own organs over into her—which seemed to be a bigger change than her arm even if she hadn't noticed any difference yet—and it occurred to her that it might mean something for her diet. Nick seemed to consider the question thoughtfully for a moment. "You shouldn't need to eat fish if you don't want to," he said at last, answering the unspoken question hidden in the one she had actually asked, "Foxes can eat just about anything."

His usual smirk widened into a grin as he placed one paw, fingers tented, against his chest. "The gods made us perfect like that."

Judy laughed, and he offered her the food he had pulled from his bag. There were indeed strips of dried fish, but he also had dried berries, nuts, and some rather crumbly looking hardtack with the seal of the City Guard stamped into it. Judy took a pawful of nuts and berries, and after a moment's hesitation grabbed one of the fish strips. Nick didn't say anything, just cocking his eyebrow, and watched as she sniffed it. It smelled, unsurprisingly, rather fishy, and Judy took a hesitant nibble.

She gagged at the taste, her face wrinkling in disgust; it seemed that whatever other changes might have happened to her body her sense of taste was unchanged. She gave the piece of fish back to Nick, grabbing his canteen and taking a long swig of water to get the harsh and oily taste out of her mouth. "So I'm guessing you didn't like it," Nick said, completely deadpan.

Judy didn't want to say she found it disgusting and couldn't imagine how anyone could actually enjoy fish, since that seemed more than a little rude, so she settled on, "I guess I don't like fish."

Thankfully, her taste for nuts and berries remained unchanged, and the sweetness of the dried berries was just the same as ever. Nick's appetite seemed to be enormous, and Judy idly wondered if alchemy worked just as well as exercise; it'd certainly explain how slim he was. When at last he had finished, Nick stood, offering a paw to help her stand. "No rest for the wicked," he said, smiling slightly, and Judy used him to pull herself upright.

"There's something we need to talk about," she said, and it was remarkable how Nick reacted.

The slight smile didn't leave his face, and Judy would be hard-pressed to say that anything was different about him. But through his paw she could have sworn she felt him stiffen for an instant even if his expression didn't change. "Ah," he said lightly, "It's not too late for you to change your mind about arresting me, you know."

There was a carelessness to the words that Judy refused to believe was true. He had hidden his thoughts well, and Judy doubted anyone else would have spotted what she did. But there was a sense of despair that had come into him, a sort of pessimistic doubt that she'd actually stay with him if she knew more about him. "It is, actually," Judy replied, and she put her other paw against his, "I love you, Nick."

Before he had a chance to react, Judy let go of his paw and pulled herself close to him, squeezing him into a hug. He stiffened again, for a moment, and then he was hugging her back. "Then it sounds like I'm stuck with you," he said, his voice slightly thicker than normal.

"Nick..." she said, cuddling her head against his chest, just below the hollow formed by his neck and the underside of his muzzle, "I  _know_ you're a good mammal."

He bent a little until his muzzle was in the space between her ears, and it felt as though the two of them had been made for each other, they fit together so well. "I  _do_  need to hear about what you did for Tlatoani, but whatever you say isn't going to change anything."

"How can you be so sure?" Nick asked, his voice barely a whisper.

"I've seen who you are when no one's watching," she said, and Nick chuckled.

Still holding Nick tight, Judy could feel it against her, starting from deep within his chest. "That doesn't sound like it should be possible," he said, and Judy could hear the smile in his voice, "But if you're sure..."

They had broken apart to start walking again, and every time Nick tried distancing himself Judy pulled closer. It took him some time to recount his days of being employed by Tlatoani, and he kept breaking off from his story to glance at Judy as though he was still afraid she'd change her mind about him. But as she patiently encouraged him on, the story did come out, and it was about what she would have expected. Tlatoani had cultivated Nick's services slowly, with a careful deliberation that seemed to Judy as though he had been testing the limits of Nick's skills while trying not to scare him off. It had been simple jobs at first, perfectly legal things any alchemist could have done, and he had rewarded Nick with what the fox wanted most—old books on alchemy. And, although Nick didn't say it directly and Judy guessed the crime lord had never put it so bluntly, respect. The shrew sounded as though he had genuinely appreciated Nick's talents, and it seemed to Judy a terrible waste that the Alchemist Guild didn't accept predators; how much stronger might Nick be if he had been formally taught and had access to the guild's private libraries?

The secret of making fake torcs might not be in those libraries—although it might; from everything she had seen herself and from hearing the story of Nick's youth, Judy didn't have high expectations for the guild—but if Nick could figure it out on his own she had no doubt that other alchemists could. From what Nick said, it wasn't something he had done very often, and not for any mammals who sounded as though they could be involved in either whatever had happened in Phoenix or in the attack on the princess.

Judy's paw brushed against her own torc, currently useless though it was, as she considered the pieces of the puzzle she had. Perhaps Cencerro had been lying when he said it, but he had claimed that if a different member of the City Guard had accompanied Nick, they would have been better able to frame Nick for the murder he had been arrested for.

Judy frowned. No, that wasn't right. Cencerro had said only that the other guardsmammal could have framed Nick before he even set foot in Phoenix, not that he would have framed Nick for that specific crime. But why? Did Cencerro know about Nick's connection to Tlatoani, and want to use it to somehow link them to his apparent coup in Phoenix?

She was so lost in her thoughts that she might have ran right into a hole in a partially collapsed tunnel if Nick hadn't gently pulled her off her path. "Careful, there," he said cheerfully, "I've only got one of you."

"I was thinking," Judy said, and Nick nodded sagely.

"I thought I smelled smoke," he said, "What about?"

"I just don't understand what Cencerro's plan is," Judy said, and she was sure her frustration was evident in her voice, "Why did he want us there? Where did he get his army? What—"

"He didn't want us there," Nick interrupted, "He wanted  _me_ there. He said it wasn't supposed to be you who ended up in Phoenix. Were you a last-minute replacement for someone?"

"That's right!" Judy said, and she couldn't believe she hadn't seen the connection before.

She had been so concerned with trying to figure out what Cencerro had wanted with Nick and what he was trying to accomplish that she hadn't even considered her own role in it. "There was another guard who was supposed to do the mission but he got sick right before he could leave. Lieutenant... Lieutenant..."

Judy sucked at her teeth as she tried to remember the mammal's name. He had only graduated from the academy a year or two before she had, and as she recalled he had been at the top of his class. She had never spoken to him before, though, and she didn't have Nick's apparently perfect recall for names and faces. She thought she might not be able to remember it after all, and then suddenly she could. "Lieutenant Sakatl," she said, and she could picture the deer's face.

"What do you know about him?" Nick asked, and Judy considered the question.

Sakatl was large for a deer, but it was mostly height, not bulk; he looked to have the elegant grace his species was known for, as well as a rack of antlers larger than Judy was. Sakatl was, Judy had heard, particularly proud of those antlers, but whether he did actually become sullen when he shed them every year or if that was just a rumor that got spread about him she didn't know. Considering how he had distinguished himself walking a beat, Judy was more inclined to believe the rumor was spread by jealous mammals.

"He's a good officer, or so I've heard," Judy said slowly, "I don't really know anything else about him."

"That's not much to go on," Nick said, but his tone was thoughtful rather than discouraging, "Do you know what he was sick with?"

Judy frowned, trying to remember. She thought she knew the lines Nick's mind was working along; it might be possible that Sakatl hadn't gotten sick at all, but what that could mean only raised more questions. Cencerro's claim that Sakatl could have framed Nick while they were traveling to Phoenix certainly made it sound as though the deer was involved in the sheep's conspiracy, but perhaps his cooperation hadn't been willing. Had the lieutenant found his conscience and refused to help? If so, perhaps he had been poisoned as punishment, or he had simply claimed to be sick to get out of escorting Nick.

"No, I don't," Judy admitted at last; no matter how she had scoured her memory she didn't think anyone had ever told her what Sakatl was suffering from.

"Something to follow up on once we get back, then," Nick said, and Judy nodded.

She wasn't able to set the puzzle aside, though, and she kept trying to figure out the extent of Cencerro's plans all the way up until the point that they came to the gorge formed by the destruction of Quimichpatlan Barony. Judy heard the sound of running water long before they reached the crack in the earth, but at last they were there. She was surprised at how deep underground they had traveled as they made their way to the limits of Phoenix; there was a narrow and jagged patch of lightness far overhead that was the only sign of daylight.

Where they stood, though, was near a blistered and cracked wall of rock, thickly coated with vividly green moss. The spray from the waterfall made everything damp and earthy smelling, and the long years that had passed since it had formed were clear in the rock. The elaborate mosaics and tiling of the tunnel they were in were badly eroded where they hadn't melted and run with the heat of whatever bit of magic had split the ground, the details blurred away into a vague fuzziness. The gap from one side of the tunnel to the other, across the gorge, was even wider than Judy would have guessed from her time on the surface; it was perhaps five hundred feet from one side to the other.

There was no visible path; some columns of stone had collapsed and protruded from the walls on either side like uneven teeth in a yawning mouth, but the irregular protrusions didn't even come close to meeting up. Looking down, the gorge descended into such pitch-black darkness that it was impossible to tell how much deeper the ruins went. Nick studied the gap with a serious eye, and Judy noted that he was studiously avoiding looking down. "Would it be easier if we kept going down?" she asked, "Cross the gap at the bottom?"

Nick shook his head. "The lower levels are all flooded, and there are more things down there we don't want to meet."

The memory of the Ehetcatl tearing at her arm was suddenly painfully vivid. "You can make a bridge across this gap?" she asked, and Nick shot her a sidelong glance.

"You don't think I can?" he asked, "Do you still doubt my skills?"

His tone was teasing and playful, but Judy pulled his paw into her own. "You're exhausted," she said, "I can tell. If making a bridge now might... might kill you I—"

"It won't kill me, Judy," he interrupted, but his expression had softened, "It'll probably give me the worst headache the gods ever cursed a mammal with, but I'll live."

"You promise?"

"I promise," Nick said, and that was that.

It took him nearly an hour to draw out a complicated diagram with a nub of chalk, which he did with a precision that made his previous alchemical transmutations look sloppy. Several times he stopped, erased a line, and replaced it with one that didn't look any different to Judy. He muttered to himself as he worked, and Judy watched in silence until he was done. The pattern he had drawn had a certain almost mathematical beauty to it, a series of spiraling triangles within a circle that seemed to be spinning to infinity or receding into it depending on how Judy looked at it. Nick set his focuses with exquisite care, and then set his paws against the circle, his eyes squeezed firmly shut.

Judy had expected a bridge to simply start growing out from the eroded edge of the tunnel, but that wasn't what happened. Instead, what seemed like thousands of black filaments, no wider than a spider's web, sprouted from it, growing longer and longer as they did. They waved crazily in air currents Judy had barely felt, the incredibly fine lines vanishing from view as they grew ever longer. After perhaps fifteen minutes of this, the only sound Nick made his steady breathing, the filaments suddenly burst with light, drawing patterns through the air like bolts of lightning and sharply illuminating the gorge and waterfall.

As Judy threw up a paw to cover her dazzled eyes, the light faded out nearly as quickly as it had appeared, but Judy could still see the afterimages of the threads burning in her field of view. She wasn't sure how many there had been total—it seemed like at least ten thousand—or how many had successfully crossed the gap. It seemed like most of the threads had become interwoven, or simply drooped downwards, but a dozen or more had anchored themselves against the far wall.

Nick opened his eyes, his chest heaving with exertion, and caught sight of Judy blinking out the remnants of the light show. "I should have warned you not to look," he managed to say between deep panting breaths, falling over onto his side.

"I should have remembered," Judy replied, feeling somewhat chagrined; she had seen him perform alchemy frequently enough to know that whatever he transmuted would burn briefly and intensely with its own light, "How do you feel?"

"Wishing I had some of my philosopher's stones left, to be honest," he said.

Judy knelt beside him, rubbing a paw across his shoulder. He looked weak and used up, his eyes blearily regarding her. She felt a pang of guilt, knowing that he could have at least eased his own pain if he hadn't used all of his stones to heal her. "I can't thank you enough for saving me," she said, and Nick managed a weak laugh.

"Maybe not, but I wouldn't mind if you tried," Nick said.

Judy gave him a quick peck, kissing him between his ears, and Nick slowly rolled from his side onto his back when she pulled her head back. "I can't say you're not grateful," he said at last, "Just give me a few minutes."

When ten minutes had passed, he forced himself to his knees and carefully drew another series of patterns across the drawing he had already made. When he applied effort again, Judy couldn't help but look despite knowing that she'd be blinking spots out of her eyes for minutes afterwards. Connections began growing between the filaments as they thickened, and the resemblance to a spider's web became truly uncanny before it started looking more like a bridge. A somewhat twisted bridge with an incredible number of dangling supports that looked as though it had grown naturally more than that it had been built. It was, to be perfectly honest, quite ugly, but it did seem to span the entire gap.

As soon as he was done, while Judy's vision was still full of painfully bright lines, Nick collapsed. "Nick!" Judy shouted, and her heart was in her throat as she rushed over to him.

Some part of her was convinced that he had been lying, that creating a bridge while already exhausted would be enough to kill him, and for a moment Judy couldn't feel the beat of his heart. But then one of his paws lifted and brushed feebly against her. "S'fine," he murmured as Judy lifted his head into her lap, "Just need a few..."

He trailed off, and his breathing became more regular. He had apparently passed out. Judy wasn't sure how long she sat there, cradling his head, and feeling relief wash over her as he continued to breath. She stroked at the fur of his head, marveling at how peaceful he seemed when at rest and enjoying the sensation of simply touching him. As she ran the fingers of her left paw through his fur, she paid closer attention to her altered fingers. There was a small scar on her thumb, shaped a bit like a ragged letter "c," and she supposed it was a perfect replica of a scar Nick had at a slightly smaller scale. A quick check of his own paw, which felt quite warm in her own, confirmed that she was right. Judy wondered how he had gotten his, and what it meant for her that she had its twin. Before she could think about it too deeply, though, her thoughts turned again to Cencerro and whatever he had been planning.

She still had no satisfying answers to her questions, although she hoped that Captain General Bogo would find what little she did have useful. Judy sincerely hoped that he would, at least; the idea of him being either involved in Cencerro's plot or simply incapable of figuring out the solution refused to fit how she saw the world. And yet, she had already seen plenty of proof that things weren't quite as black and white as she had once thought. A seemingly loyal and decorated member of the City Guard had tried killing her, and had done  _something_ to the entire population of Phoenix to make them vanish even if she didn't know what it was. Vanish just as an army had shown up...

When Nick finally awakened, Judy could barely contain her excitement at sharing her new theory, but she did her best. He was still obviously weak, and no matter how exciting her idea was her concern for him was too great to ignore. If anything, though, his exhaustion (and what was, he assured her, the worst headache he had ever had) seemed to dull his fear of heights, although he had crawled across the bridge with his eyes screwed shut and his body trembling. She supposed he had simply been too tired to be afraid, and once he was across Judy positioned herself under his arm and let him use her as a crutch.

When he had finally recovered enough that it seemed he might be capable of actually listening to her, Judy asked the question that had been turning over in her mind for what felt like hours. "What if the reason everyone in Phoenix disappeared right as an army showed up is because they  _are_ the army?" she asked.

Nick had blinked wearily at her for a moment before speaking. "So everyone in Phoenix really  _was_ out to get me?" he asked, "How could Cencerro make everyone play along?"

"Isn't there some kind of blood magic or alchemy or, I don't know, some kind of artifact from Quimichpatlan Barony that—"

Nick cut her off with an exhausted shake of his head that made his head brush up against hers. "Mind control, you mean," he said.

"Yes, exactly!" Judy said triumphantly, glad that even as tired as he was he got her point, "Is it possible?"

"No idea," Nick said, "But it's a thought."

Judy tried to rein in her disappointment, but she must not have been successful because Nick observed, "Your ears are drooping again."

"I just really want to figure it out," Judy said softly, and Nick nodded again.

"I know," he said, "But let's get out of here first."

Although Judy would have loved to have picked his brain further for ideas, she let the topic drop and continued to support Nick as he guided them through the tunnels on the opposite side of the gorge. It occurred to her that while they might still be in the ruins of Quimichpatlan Barony, they had left behind the borders of Phoenix, and it was a strange thought. They had successfully escaped the settlement; now all they had to do was reach the surface.

That took several more hours, and it was only with ever more effort that Judy didn't say anything. Nick was clearly too exhausted to manage a conversation, and so Judy kept trying to figure out patterns in her own mind. It didn't quite seem fair; she had lost an arm and was already feeling more or less normal, while he hadn't suffered any injuries at all and was obviously in far more miserable shape. Eventually, though, Nick brought them to a shaft about ten feet wide with a spiraling staircase circling it. It was dusty and had a disused air to it, but it seemed to be entirely intact. Nick groaned when he saw it, though, speaking for the first time in hours. "I was hoping for a lift," he said with a sigh, "This is going to take me a while."

"I'm here for however long it takes," Judy replied, and she was as good as her word.

It wasn't easy, making her way up the stairs with Nick leaning so heavily against her, and the stairs themselves seemed to spiral endlessly upwards. At long last, they came to a hatch and Judy threw herself at it, pushing as hard as she could. For a moment, she thought that it might not open, that Nick would either have to transmute an opening or that they'd have to walk all the way back down and find another way out. But the hatch did give way, showering the two of them with dirt and fine pebbles. The sunlight was just as dazzling as the light of Nick's alchemy after so much time underground, and Judy squinted as she pulled herself out onto the pock-marked and barren ground of the wastelands. Looking down at Nick, the natural light made him appear more ragged and frail than the glare of an alchemical torch. His fur was matted with dirt and cobwebs, and the weariness in his eyes appeared even more pronounced. Despite it all, though, Judy thought he was more handsome than he had ever been.

"Come on," Judy said, "I'll pull you up."

Nick reached up, Judy grabbing his paw and pulling him into the light of day.

* * *

**Author's Notes:**

Judy dropped her spear to draw her sword when fighting the monsters back in chapter 31, and I figured that it made sense that Nick wouldn't have bothered to pick it up when he was carrying her.

Foxes are indeed omnivores, rather than obligate carnivores like some predators. Then again, considering that Judy's insides are a blend of rabbit and fox at this point, her dietary needs might not be quite as simple as Nick suggests; he's certainly not a doctor.

Hardtack has been made for hundreds of years, particularly for use by soldiers and sailors as cheap and relatively non-perishable calories. In the real world, hardtack was sometimes stamped with identifying information before it was baked, as it was here.

Sakatl's name is derived from the Nahuatl word for "grass," which seemed appropriate as a surname for an herbivore. Male deer do indeed shed their antlers every year, but whether that's something that would actually make a sentient deer moody is beyond me. It certainly seems like the sort of gossip that might be a self-fulfilling prophecy, though; if people treat you differently because they expect you to be acting in a certain way, it might irritate you enough to make you act that way.

The bridge Nick builds starts with one of the applications modern science would find quite difficult but alchemy as described here would have better luck with. Carbon nanotubes, although a frequently mentioned material in modern science fiction, are a real material with incredible properties, including fantastic strength. Creating usable lengths of nanotubes is a tremendous challenge, but if you could create lengths of arbitrary size you could do a lot with them.

Otherwise, I don't have too much to say about this chapter. I do hope you enjoyed it, and if you're so inclined as to leave a comment I'd love to know what you thought!


	38. Chapter 38

_Unprecedented problems require unprecedented solutions._

Bogo rolled the words around in his mind. There were dozens of things that mammals had said that had stuck in his memory for whatever reason, going back to even before he took the oath that had made him a member of a City Guard. His predecessor as Captain General had been a veritable font of wisdom, and he could remember her way with words even years later. But the latest phrase to catch in his mind was far more recent than any of the others, and it had come from an almost unlikely source.

They were the princess's words, spoken not even half an hour earlier, and they were perhaps the surest sign he had ever seen that she would one day be ready to be queen. It was the first comforting thought he had held in quite some time, and he tried to hold onto the feeling as his army advanced across the wastelands, the syncopated steps of mammals who varied wildly in size providing a beat that was the only thing that could be heard.

The princess's counsel had been drawn in when one of the strangest-looking messengers Bogo had ever seen had swooped over the marching army not even ten minutes after they had left the War Gate and crossed into the wasteland. Just about every messenger bird Bogo had ever seen was a hawk or an eagle, or somewhat more rarely an owl. But the bird that had descended for him was a swift, one that Bogo assumed at first was a wild bird that saw the marching army as potential food source. Until, that was, the bird landed on his arm and he saw the tiniest shrew he had ever seen perched on the bird's back and holding its reins.

"You didn't make yourself easy to find," the shrew said without preamble, its voice high but unmistakably masculine, "Report for you, Lord Bogo."

Rather than getting his message then and there, Bogo had carried the bird and shrew, which together formed an almost imperceptible weight on his hoof, to the carriage that had been assembled for the queen, the princess, and their advisers. Considering that none of them was a soldier, Bogo doubted any of them, except perhaps Corazón, would have been up for marching to Phoenix. The carriage itself was fairly spacious, as even with Bogo sitting on one of the two overly plush bench seats that faced each other no one was quite touching elbows. The messenger had landed his bird on the table set at the center of the carriage, seeming to ignore the elaborate map of Zootopia that had already been there. When the tiny shrew caught sight of the queen and princess, his entire demeanor changed from visible annoyance at Bogo to almost overblown respect. He almost tripped over his feet in his hurry to bow, although that might also have been an effect of the rocking of the carriage, and introduced himself without daring to look either the queen or the princess in the face. "I am Middle of the Juan—I mean, Juan of the Middle Baronies, your majesties, and this is my partner Mitotiqui," he had said, and he did something with the reins held in one minuscule paw that made the bird do a surprisingly good imitation of a bow.

The shrew was dressed largely as Camoti had been, although he was so small that his clothes were difficult to see; without his glasses Bogo could barely make him out. His species was easily the smallest Bogo had ever encountered, as even the diminutive crime lord Alfonso would have towered over him, but they had vaguely similar snouts. Juan was also completely ignoring the other members of the Queen's Council, which Bogo didn't mind, although Lady Cencerro had a vaguely put-upon expression on her face at the snub. Juan was still bowing, and Bogo realized that the shrew probably didn't know what to do next; most mammals would never get the chance to see royalty up close, let alone to speak with them. "He was hired to travel to Phoenix and report back after we lost contact with the settlement," Bogo interjected hastily, "Your report, if you would."

Juan straightened up, tugging at his riding clothes anxiously. "The report, the report, of course," he said.

His voice was shaky with what was obviously nerves; he had none of the smooth charm of his fellow messenger. "I, ah, that is—"

"What did you see?" Lady Cencerro interrupted.

She was sitting behind the shrew's back, and he spun around before dipping in an awkward half bow. "Time is of the essence, is it not Captain General?" she said, with a sweetness to her voice that didn't extend to her face, "Anything you could tell us would be most helpful."

It was actually rather remarkable, when Bogo thought about it, that Lady Cencerro could manage to make such flattering words in such a gentle voice sound almost like a threat. "Of course!" Juan said, and he spun back around to face the queen and princess.

"There's an army outside Phoenix, just past the bridge. But not really. Because the bridge isn't there anymore, I mean, not that there  _isn't_ an army. Because there is. An army, not a bridge. In the wastelands, not Phoenix," the shrew said, and his words were coming out as quickly as water rushing over the edge of an aqueduct.

"Few thousand mammals, I'd say. All different sizes, too. Like... city guards. Not  _the_ City Guard, I mean, but like they were guarding Phoenix, and they all had uniforms too, but not like guard uniforms. They had banners, with this odd symbol, kind of like a... Like a..."

Juan's paws groped the air as he seemed to search for and fail at describing the symbol he had seen. Before anyone could prompt him to ask if it had been the sigil of the Betrayer, he seemed to pull something from a pouch at his waist (or at least Bogo assumed he had; his belt was too small to see) and fell to his knees. Without so much as asking first if he could draw on the richly made map, he drew a symbol nearly half as large as he was, which made it all but illegible to Bogo.

From the way he saw the heads of the other members of the council nod, though, Bogo assumed two things: that it was indeed Oztoyehuatl the Betrayer's personal symbol, and that Juan must have been a somewhat lackluster student in his younger days not to know that. From Corazón's response, he knew he was right on at least one count; the lion said, "So your cousin was telling the truth, Lady Cencerro."

"What about Phoenix itself?" the queen asked, apparently ignoring Corazón's petty swipe at Cencerro, "What did you see?"

"Ah, well, to tell the truth, your highness," Juan stammered, his entire body trembling, "I didn't see much. The mammals outside the city started shooting arrows at poor Mitotiqui here. We—that is, I mean, I—didn't think... That is, I didn't think it was safe to get lower. For a better view, I mean. But give the word, your highness, and I'll get close enough to see the whites of their eyes, I swear it."

The shrew had undergone a remarkable transformation as he spoke; as he pledged himself to make what sounded like it could be a doomed reconnaissance run, his voice had strengthened, and while he still spoke to the queen bowed low, some steel seemed to have come into his spine and his trembling stopped. But Bogo was more interested in what the messenger had confirmed, and especially in the new information he had learned. So far, everything Juan had said matched up perfectly with Lieutenant Colonel Cencerro's testimony; if it hadn't Bogo's next stop would have been over to the significantly smaller and less luxurious carriage in which the sheep was riding to engage in some significantly more intense questioning.

That the mammals holding Phoenix had archers was of particular interest to Bogo, considering he was almost certainly have to fight those mammals, and he asked the question that would help him most. "How many archers? How many arrows loose at one time?"

"Two or three dozen," Juan replied almost instantly, and he must have misread Bogo's frown of concentration because he quickly added, "I know I could get past them if I needed to, Lord Bogo."

Bogo grunted his acknowledgement, still thinking. He wasn't an expert at flight by any means, but he supposed it was true enough; if the army surrounding Phoenix really had destroyed the bridge into the settlement, it'd be safe enough inside of Phoenix. Unless, of course, they had worked their way through the tunnels in the ruins Phoenix was built on top of like termites in a rotting piece of wood.

Still, for an army of that size, it was a surprisingly low number of archers, but Bogo refused to let himself feel optimistic about his odds of success. As long as he had no idea what other surprises might await in Phoenix he wouldn't delude himself into thinking it would be easy. "That certainly sounds encouraging for our attack," Cerdo said brightly, appearing to be thinking along entirely opposite lines, "With their backs to the gorge, they don't stand a chance."

It was, Bogo had to admit, a reasonable tactical assessment. For an army to position themselves like that was foolish at best; they'd have no way to retreat and even the most incompetent lieutenant in all the City Guard would be able to set up a charge that would inflict massive casualties. "It might be a trap," the princess countered.

Her voice was quiet but firm, and Bogo's thoughts drew back to watching her practice with a sword. Assuming he could keep her safe, which was admittedly quite an assumption, she'd be an adult soon, and it was obvious that in many ways she had already begun to think like one. The queen nodded, and Bogo thought he saw both approval and acknowledgement of her daughter's contribution in the gesture. "We'll need more information," Queen Lana said, "I will not spend a single soldier's life needlessly."

"Absolutely, your highness, I'll be off at once," Juan replied eagerly.

He was fumbling with his bird's reins, not that Mitotiqui seemed to mind. He—or she, since Juan had never specified and Bogo didn't know how to tell the difference for a swift—was about the calmest bird Bogo had ever seen, particularly in contrast to Juan. "No, not yet," the princess said, lifting a single paw, "Juan of the Middle Baronies, how have you been paid for the work you've already done for the City Guard?"

The shrew was completely lost for words for a moment. "By contract, that is, same as any other client, your highness."

"And that contract only covered the delivery of a single scouting report to Lord Bogo, did it not?" the princess pressed on.

"It did, it did," Juan said, "But it's no trouble, no trouble at all for me to go again, your highness, I—"

"Juan of the Middle Baronies," the princess interrupted, "You were prepared to risk your life for a job you haven't even signed a contract to ensure payment for. Why?"

"It— It's the right thing to do, your highness," Juan said at last, "Anything for you or the kingdom."

The princess nodded. "Do you have a family, Juan of the Middle Baronies? A wife or any children?"

"Ah, well, not yet your highness, not yet, but I am to be married," Juan said, "Six months it is, we've been promised to each other. Long enough, she's been telling me."

The poor shrew sounded nearly as confused as Bogo felt, finishing his words with a nervous chuckle. He wasn't entirely sure what the princess was getting at, but when she spoke again she had the same calm authority her mother exuded. "Without a contract, there is no guarantee that you'll get paid," the princess said.

Bogo thought he saw Juan's tiny mouth open and close soundlessly, the shrew probably torn between vigorous denial and not wanting to interrupt. "And should you die, on this potentially dangerous scouting mission, there's no guarantee your betrothed would receive any compensation," the princess continued, "Whereas any single one of the mammals in the City Guard, should they die retaking Phoenix from the barbarians who attacked it, would leave behind some assistance to their families."

"Oh, well, I have a contract here," Juan said patting frenetically at his torso before pulling out a piece of folded up paper so tiny that whatever text was on it made the page look gray, "If you want to sign a contract, your highness."

"Not quite," the princess said, "You have a noble spirit, Juan of the Middle Baronies, to be willing to sacrifice for your city, but it is not right for me to demand that sacrifice of you without reward or protection. I ask you to take the oath of the City Guard."

Juan's answer—an enthusiastic "Yes, your highness," was nearly lost in the shocked reactions of Lord Cerdo and Lady Cencerro.

Both the pig and the sheep were obviously shocked, but when Bogo looked to the silent Lord Corazón he saw a look of satisfaction cross the lion's face. "Your highness, it  _is_ very unusual," Cerdo began in a somewhat hectoring tone, "Surely the contract, with appropriate bonus pay, would be sufficient?"

"Do you really mean to have him sworn in?" Cencerro asked, "It's unprecedented."

Bogo wasn't sure how much of her reaction was surprise and how much of it was the political maneuvering of realizing that the princess had just given Corazón a very clear sign of approval when it came to his proposals. "Unprecedented problems require unprecedented solutions," the princess had replied, and that had been that.

Bogo had administered the oath himself, swearing Juan in as a sergeant before the little shrew flew off to do more reconnaissance.

For his part, Bogo had excused himself soon afterwards, claiming to want to get an update on the army's status. Of course, his real reason for doing so was to consider what the princess had said, the words lodged in his brain like a splinter.  _Unprecedented problems require unprecedented solutions._

Even as Bogo checked in with every column of his force as it kicked up dust along the one road between Zootopia and Phoenix, he couldn't escape the words. Perhaps Corazón had been right all along; was Bogo desperately clinging to tradition in a way that ensured he would lose? The entire campaign he was embarking on had that sort of feeling to it, that everything would have been so much easier if something—tradition, momentum, whatever you wanted to call it—hadn't pulled events along tired old lines. There was no good reason a better and faster route to Phoenix couldn't have been built decades ago, but the political motivation had never been there. There was no reason that the Outer Wall couldn't have been fixed where it was breached near Phoenix, but it was said to be too expensive and there was nothing out past it. Everything his enemy had taken advantage of was something Zootopia's defenders had considered unimportant. And now he had come dangerously close to denying his army information it desperately needed just because the source of that information was a shrew.

It would have been easy to have interjected into the princess's conversation with the messenger, to offer a generous contract once again, and handle messengers the way they had always been treated. Not as a part of the City Guard, but as a lesser tool. A sort of mercenary one, a necessary evil. But by enlisting Juan, the princess had secured what seemed to be exceptional loyalty at a far lower cost than yet another expensive contract.

And Juan was only the first of what could be many. Bogo could imagine a much larger force, an entire new branch of the City Guard, and what it could be used for. It'd be expensive, of course, building up a viable force, but that was the only halfway reasonable counterargument he could think of. Besides, maybe if he started admitting shrews and mice to serve as bird-mounted scouts and messengers—and Gods, maybe even bats no matter how much slower they were—Corazón might stop pushing as hard for rabbits and other small mammals to go through the academy. But then, maybe he had been wrong there, too. If Lieutenant Colonel Cencerro had been telling the truth, Ensign Totchli had died a hero despite being a bunny and a loner while at the academy. Perhaps, as unlikely as it seemed, there were more bunnies like her out there.

Blindly following tradition wouldn't be what saved Zootopia, if there was anything that  _could_ save the city. He still had a horrible feeling that there was something he was overlooking, but he couldn't say what it was. Although they still weren't very far into their trip, none of the other members of the Queen's Council had taken the initiative to try murdering the queen or princess—which was a small favor, he supposed—but Bogo still had the nagging feeling that he had missed something important, his mind continuously circling back to the thought.

Just as Bogo was about to head back to the royal carriage, he was caught by a scout. A traditional scout, that was, not one of his new Aerial Guards or whatever term he ended up settling on. She was a slim young springbok, wearing the lightweight and totally unarmored uniform of a high-speed scout, with a belt of quauhxicallis all designed to improve her already impressive running speed. "Sir," she said, barely panting in an impressive display of endurance as expected of a scout that ranged far ahead of the army, "Two mammals approaching, about half a day's march away. A fox and a rabbit."

"A fox and a rabbit," Bogo repeated, and his blood began to run cold, "Was the rabbit wearing a City Guard uniform?"

"Yessir," the springbok replied; if she was surprised or impressed that he had known that, it didn't show on her face, "Her armor looked a bit battered and dirty, but I'd swear she's City Guard."

Bogo frowned. As he saw it, there were only two real possibilities. Either Lieutenant Colonel Cencerro had been lying about Ensign Totchli's death or the barbarians had a rabbit who was wearing her armor. Looking at those options, he knew what his next move had to be. "Put together a small force, lieutenant, three mammals and yourself," he said, "Bring the two of them in. And be careful. The fox might be an alchemist."

The springbok's composure broke ever so slightly at that; one of her eyebrows twitched upwards towards her curving horns. "Yessir," she said, "Should we ask them politely first?"

Bogo nodded. "At first," he said, "If they won't come along, do what you have to."

* * *

 

**Author's Notes:**

Way back in chapter 22, Bogo did order that a messenger be dispatched to Phoenix to investigate what was going on the instant he received word that communication had been cut off. Here, that messenger finally catches up with him; to be fair Bogo did leave what could reasonably be assumed to be the location where a report should be made.

The common swift is indeed a small bird compared to most birds of prey or owls, but they are remarkable fliers; a swift can stay airborne for ten months at a time. That's not a typo on my part; swifts really can go almost an entire year without ever landing. They're also the sixth-fastest known bird in flight, capable of reaching speeds of 111.6 kph (69.3 mph) in horizontal flight. As such, it shouldn't be too surprising that the bird shares its name with a word for doing something fast!

The shrew riding the swift is an Etruscan shrew, not an Arctic shrew like Mr. Big or Fru-Fru, which has the distinction of being the smallest living mammal by mass, averaging just 1.8 grams (0.063 ounces). Considering the small size of a swift, the rider has to be pretty small to not be overly burdensome for the bird. The word "mitotiqui" comes from a Nahuatl word that refers to a kind of dance, but in modern Mexican Spanish is the root for "mitote," a word that can also mean to create an uproar or a disturbance. There have been several birds in this story now, all with names in Nahuatl; I figure that it's seen as an appropriate naming convention in-universe, in much the same way that there are some names you'd give a dog but not a person.

The rank of sergeant is at about the middle of the Spanish Army's enlisted ranks; Juan is not an officer as Judy is.

Bogo is both right and wrong when he thinks that bats are slower than birds. Birds generally can fly faster than bats, but the Brazilian free-tail bat can hit 160 kph (100 mph) in level flight in brief bursts, making it faster than any bird although it's average speed is lower. While the peregrine falcon can indeed  _move_ faster, that's only in dives, not in horizontal flight.

Springboks are one of the world's fastest land animals; although not as fast as a cheetah they are often successful at escaping cheetahs when hunted. I figured it also made sense for scouts to have a lighter uniform than the rest of the City Guard; anything to make it easier for them to go faster.

As always, thanks for reading! I hope you'll enjoy seeing what comes next!

 


	39. Chapter 39

Judy's arm itched and there was nothing she could do about it.

It was a terribly trivial thing to think about—she was also tired and hungry, and that was leaving aside her concern about Nick—but somehow the too-tight bandages wrapping her altered arm wouldn't leave her mind. But then, thinking was about all she could do while waiting to be delivered to the City Guard.

"Delivered" seemed to be the word that fit best, too; she was no longer walking under her own power, but was instead securely harnessed to the back of one of the four mammals who had ordered her and Nick to go with them. The harness she was fastened into might have been designed for her own safety, as the calm springbok who seemed to be in charge of the other three mammals—a gazelle and two cheetahs who looked so similar that they might have been twins—had said. But it also worked quite well as a restraint, and Judy couldn't so much as move an inch as she watched Phoenix grow ever smaller and smaller.

Judy didn't quite feel like a prisoner, but she wondered if that would have been different if she and Nick had refused to go along with the four mammals who claimed to be scouts from the City Guard. Not that they would have been in much shape to resist, of course. With her own bag lost in the ruins under Phoenix, the only supplies they had carried had been what was in Nick's bag, and those hadn't been nearly enough. Nick had demonstrated his ability to transmute rocks into perfect copies of what little food they did have remaining, as well as fresh water to replace his nearly empty canteen, but Judy had seen the effort it cost him. Even days after healing her arm, he was still obviously exhausted, and a certain hollowness had come into his features that she didn't like the look of.

It had meant that they couldn't travel nearly as fast as they had on their way to Phoenix, which in turn meant that the meager amount of food which might have been just barely enough at a faster pace was completely insufficient when traveling slowly enough for Nick to keep up. Even when Judy insisted on carrying his bag, which felt as though it weighed about as much as she did, he tired easily. On their first night back under the sky he had fallen asleep mid-conversation, and when it had come to be his turn to keep watch for anyone from the army surrounding Phoenix chasing after them he had fallen asleep again.

It had occurred to Judy part of the way through the second day that they had switched positions from when Nick had been trying to save her life; she found herself telling him long and rambling stories of her days as a kit in Totchli Barony just to give him something to focus on. If it had bothered Nick when she diverted into tangents as she tried to remember complex family trees and which cousins had been part of a particular story he hadn't given any indication of it; his responses had tended to be no more than a word or two.

He had given her an explanation, though, one that made a certain kind of sense even though she suspected he was glossing over a number of details. "It's like a rain barrel," he had said the first night, holding her close with one paw and vaguely patting at the air with the other, "Use too much water and you have to wait for it to fill up again."

"What does alchemy use?" Judy had asked, both because she was curious and because she wanted to keep him talking.

Nick had shrugged expansively, his tail curling around her as he yawned widely. "Every mammal has it. A gift from the gods, some say," he had said at last.

"Your soul?" Judy had suggested, rather tentatively.

The idea that Nick was somehow spending the everlasting portion of his being to change rocks into food was more frightening than the idea that it cost him physical effort. What would happen if he pushed too hard while his mysterious reserves were too empty? Would it kill him? Or, worse, would it leave his body alive but without the spark that made him who he was, still breathing but motionless?

"If you want to call it that," had been Nick's answer, and he had fallen asleep almost the instant after speaking the words.

Judy had set the conversation aside, although her mind kept running back to it, especially when four figures had appeared as dark spots over the horizon, clearly coming toward them from the direction of the heart of Zootopia. It seemed possible that if Cencerro had allies in the city-state itself, he could have sent them out to ensure that his version of the story of what happened in Phoenix was the only one that anyone heard. Nick had seen the figures a moment after her—which was in itself somewhat troubling, considering how sharp his eyes were—and had collapsed to his knees, gesturing for Judy to let him rummage through his pack. "We have to cover your arm," he said, pulling a roll of bandages out.

Judy had wanted to protest, but she saw his point after a moment. Her uniform tunic was ruined, the left sleeve completely gone, and without her own pack she had no spares, which meant that her altered arm stood out spectacularly. "Easier if there's one less thing to explain," Nick had said, seeing the expression crossing her face, and then he had slumped onto his back.

"I really hope they don't want to fight," he had said with a sigh as Judy had wrapped bandages around her arm, "But I think the gods enjoy laughing at me."

There had been a touch of his normal put-upon cynical air to the words, and Judy had been glad at even the small sign of recovery. If it did come to a fight, she got the feeling that he would be of no help whatsoever, and she wasn't so arrogant as to think that graduating at the top of her class meant that she could take on four mammals with no trouble. Especially once the figures in the distance resolved themselves into mammals wearing the uniforms of City Guard scouts, the thin red tunics woven with a pattern that approximated the quilting of her own much thicker uniform top.

All four mammals had moved with the incredible speed and stamina that could only come from quauhxicallis, which Judy had chosen to be cautiously optimistic about. It certainly suggested that they were members of the City Guard, which sounded promising except when Judy remembered that Lieutenant Colonel Cencerro had been as well. The leader of the group, who had introduced herself as Lieutenant Del Oro. She hadn't bothered to give her first name or introduce her team, and her bluntness had continued with her line of questioning. "Are you Judy of Totchli Barony?" she had asked.

Judy had to resist the urge to frown before answering that she was; it was perhaps not a good sign that her rank hadn't been included. "Are you Nicholas of the Middle Baronies?" Del Oro had subsequently asked Nick, her attention turning away from Judy so completely that it was as though she had forgotten she existed.

If the springbok found it odd that Nick was flat on his back with his eyes half-closed, she didn't say anything. Nick had simply nodded, idly waving one paw. "I have orders to bring you back to Captain General Bogo," Del Oro had continued, "You will surrender any and all weapons on you and comply."

Mercifully, Nick hadn't piped up to say something that could have escalated the situation, like asking what would have happened if they didn't. Frankly, Judy was curious as to the answer herself, but Nick had given up a small dagger Judy had never seen him use and she gave up her sword. That, at least, had finally caused a crack in the professionalism of the springbok; Del Oro had raised an eyebrow at seeing the finely made sabre, and the gazelle had whistled appreciatively as he collected it. "Getting a head start on captain, are you?" he had asked, sliding the sabre a few inches out of its sheath to admire the wickedly sharp edge.

"Odd pommel, though," he had added as he inspected the miniature golden replica of Nick's head.

"That's enough," Del Oro had replied sharply to the gazelle, even as Judy felt her ears burning.

It certainly hadn't been her intent to put on airs by carrying the sword Nick had made her, but he had been in no shape to make her a replacement spear for the last few days. Worse, she wasn't sure what the scouts were reading into the sword. It'd be bad enough if they thought that she was one of those officers who broke traditions and rules alike, particularly considering that she needed to convince Captain General Bogo of the threat that Cencerro posed. But what if they thought that there was something suspicious on the basis of her relationship with Nick?

The springbok had turned back to Judy, fixing her in a level stare. "How bad is your injury?" she had asked, gesturing at Judy's arm.

Normally, such a question would have betrayed at least a little bit of concern, or at the very least a sort of false interest. Del Oro had sounded more as though she was trying to determine the solution to a puzzle, as though her only concern was in whether it would make her job more or less difficult.

"It's— It's not life-threatening," Judy had managed, clutching at her left arm with her right, "I got hurt in the ruins."

Del Oro had made a noncommittal noise in the back of her throat. "And what about you, fox?"

"Just tired," Nick had replied, lifting one paw in a lazy wave before letting it fall to the ground again.

He hadn't moved at all from his position on the ground, and Del Oro turned away. Each officer carried a small pack, and when Del Oro began digging through her own the others followed suit. "Lieutenant Del Oro," Judy began, "I'd like to—"

She hadn't been sure exactly what she was going to say, just that she wanted to know more about what Del Oro knew. "I'd like you to make my job easier," the springbok had interrupted, her tone politely neutral even though her words weren't, "We're getting the two of you back to the captain general as soon as possible."

Shortly thereafter, Judy had suffered the indignity of being strapped to the back of one of the cheetahs, with Nick on the other and his bag on the back of the gazelle. And with that, she was stuck watching the landscape bounce by at high speed as the woven straps dug into her thighs and elbows. And as the bandages covering her left arm made it itch terribly.

Judy resisted the urge to sigh; the harness was so tight that it would have been more than a little unpleasant. There was no point in trying to talk, either; when she had tried, the cheetah had simply ignored her question. That might have been because of Lieutenant Del Oro, who seemed to be keeping an eye on the other officers, alternating between running ahead and behind as part of a constantly shifting pattern. When one of those shifts let Judy move her neck—which seemed to be about the only part of her body she  _could_ move—she had caught a glimpse of Nick. He was asleep, which was more than a little impressive considering how rough a ride being strapped to the back of a mammal moving at incredible speed was.

Her only option, then, as she tried to ignore the itching in her arm, was to think. Del Oro had known her name and Nick's name, which seemed to suggest something, but she was at a loss for what it was.  _She said Captain General Bogo sent her to get us. You really do have friends in high places, don't you?_ Nick's voice asked in her mind. Judy knew that it wasn't really Nick, but there was something comforting in imagining his words as though she could actually speak to him rather than just occasionally catching a glimpse of his nodding head or limp tail.  _Very sweet, Carrots. But you're thinking about the mystery, because of course you are. Can't waste any time fantasizing about me?_

Judy frowned, feeling a blush creep up her ears as an image of Nick in all his glory crept into her mind. She wasn't sure what it said about her imagination that it was teasing her in the voice of her— _lover, of course_ , Nick's voice seemed to interject into her thoughts.  _I do hope that's what you were going to think next._

The image of his face, his eyes sparkling with mischievous delight as a slow smile crossed his muzzle, seemed so vivid that it was as though he was somehow floating next to her and not lashed to the back of a rapidly running cheetah.  _Once I can keep my head upright, I promise to show you what that means. And to mock those ridiculous stories you told me about your misspent youth, but there_ are  _priorities._

"And right now mine is figuring out what's going on," Judy said, speaking the words out loud before she even realized that was what she was going to do.

Excepting the time she had been dying of Ehetcatl venom, Judy had never imagined someone so vividly, and that had been with Nick actually telling her a story and her mind filling in the gaps. Her imagined Nick was somehow just as real, and speaking to him had seemed so natural that the words had just slipped out. The cheetah who was carrying her was still pointedly ignoring Judy, which was just as well because she doubted she could explain herself.  _Yes, yes, and you need a clever fox to help with that. Now, how does Bogo know who we are? I've never met him, and somehow I doubt you have either._

Judy wasn't sure whether or not what Nick—or at least, the Nick her imagination conjured up—had said was true for him, but it was certainly true for her. Her rank and assignment were both too low to have ever met the mammal responsible for all of Zootopia's City Guard, but everything flowed upward in the City Guard. Someone had signed off on her assignment to escort Nick, and someone had signed off on that, and so on and so on, until it likely made its way into something less than a line item on a report that hit Bogo's desk.  _Sad to see your life reduced to that_ , Nick replied agreeably,  _But I think you're right. He knows who we are because he_ wanted _to know who we are. I doubt he remembers everything that crosses his desk. Or maybe he does and that's how he got the job._

Judy ignored the flippant remark—which her own mind had been the source of—and tried to run through the implication of it. If Bogo had bothered to find out who the two of them were, that meant that he had some reason to suspect that things weren't going right in Phoenix. And the reason for that would likely be— _Birds,_ Nick's voice interrupted her thoughts,  _Just like the name of the settlement. Little on the nose, don't you think?_

"I  _knew_ that," Judy muttered despite herself.

_No, I think I'll take the credit for that one_. Even in her mind, his words were smug. No class Judy had ever taken at the academy had suggested imagining a partner to work through a mystery, or what it meant when you started getting annoyed at that imagined partner for giving answers before you had the chance to consciously think of them yourself. Maybe that you were going a little crazy with nothing else to do.  _I hope you can live with that_ , Nick's voice came again, the shrug somehow evident in it,  _But back to your mystery. Birds._

When Phoenix had been taken over, it certainly meant that any communication between the settlement and the rest of Zootopia had stopped. Judy knew that Fermina or Fernanda or whatever she wanted to call the shrew must have been one of the last ones out of Phoenix, which suggested that Cencerro hadn't stopped communication out of Phoenix before his coup or whatever it was he had done.

_So someone on the City Guard actually does their job and notices that there haven't been messages between Phoenix and Zootopia for a while. How long does that take? A day? Two?_

Judy didn't know the answer, but she supposed one day would be the absolute minimum.  _And then we spend some time in jail before I cleverly make a way out, lose even more time in the ruins before I cleverly give you a new arm and build a bridge—either one of which I'd love to see anyone else match—and then a few days staggering back toward Zootopia before this bunch picks us up._ Judy wasn't sure exactly how much time they had lost, but she saw what the inevitable conclusion was.

Bogo must have sent mammals to investigate Phoenix very soon after the city went dark, and he had done enough research to know that the two of them were among the last mammals to enter the settlement. And that he had bothered to do so, in the middle of investigating an attempt on the princess's life, suggested that the two events might be connected.

_Or that Bogo can focus on more than one thing at a time_ , Nick's voice countered cheerfully. Judy thought it was too coincidental for the events to be unrelated, and in her imagination Nick nodded slowly, stroking at his muzzle.

_How far can these scouts go, anyway? The quauhxicallis must cost a fortune._

Nick—or at least, Judy's imagination—had a point there. Every fifteen minutes or so, by Judy's best estimate, the scouts would pull a vial off a belt at their waist, down the contents, and throw the empty vial away with an impressive smoothness. For four mammals, that was a lot of  _quauhxicallis_ _._ _I'd probably cough up a lung if I tried drinking and running at the same time._

Judy smiled a bit at the thought of it; in her imagination the red of a scout uniform somehow complemented the red-orange of Nick's fur. Without a heavy breastplate like the standard guard uniform, it would really emphasize the lean strength to his arms and torso and— _Now who's being a distraction?_

Judy did the rough mental math as well as she could, based on her estimate of how many quauhxicallis each scout had been carrying when they arrived and what she thought the standard number of spares to carry would be. Her best guess was somewhere just outside the Middle Wall, and in her head Nick nodded his approval.  _So is Bogo at the Middle Wall, or is that just where the order came from?_

The only answer she could think of was that either Bogo would be near the Middle Wall or they would stop there to resupply for a trip further into the city. But if Bogo knew about the barbarians at the Outer Wall, would he really wait patiently at the Middle Wall?  _You tell me, Carrots._

Judy suspected that the answer was a firm no. He'd be leading an army, which Cencerro would definitely know. Was it a trap, then?  _Well, that's one possibility. But what about that notebook of his?_

Judy didn't have any of the messages Cencerro had received or sent using the code his book allowed, but she supposed that it mattered which one had been last. Either  _Cencerro sent a message to someone else—which would likely be on one of the last messenger birds out of Phoenix—or Cencerro received a message from someone—which would be one of the last messengers into Phoenix. Narrows things down a bit._ Nick's voice was contemplative in her mind, his paws weighing the options.

Judy could only hope that Bogo would be willing to listen.  _Well, that and that he's not in on Cencerro's plan and about to have us put to death for treason,_ Nick's voice came with a cheer that didn't match the words at all.

Judy frowned for a moment, and then pushed the pessimistic thought aside. She was sure everything would end up fine, and Nick chuckled cynically in her head.  _Never change, Judy. Never change. But it looks like you can ask him yourself._

On some level, Judy had been paying attention to the scenery as she thought, but those thoughts had consumed the bulk of her attention. It made it more than a little surprising to realize that they had closed a significant amount of the distance between Phoenix and the Middle Wall—and that there was indeed an army.

It was a bit difficult to see, facing backwards, but Judy guessed that there had to be thousands of mammals and dozens of supply carts, all moving at a rapid march that was still far slower than the scouts.

With a seemingly unerring sense of direction, the four scouts approached one of the larger carriages, and once they were cleared for entry by a pair of suspicious-looking guards dropped Judy, Nick, and Nick's bag on the floor, gave one of the briefest reports Judy had ever heard—"No trouble, sir. A sabre and a dagger in the bag." to Captain General Bogo—and been out the door again.

Judy tried not to read too much into the fact that the scouts had simply removed the straps that connected the carrying harnesses to their own bodies rather than releasing her and Nick from the straps that held their limbs tight. She was helpless on her side, completely unable to move, and Bogo didn't do anything to change that. The real Nick was still asleep, snoring gently on the floor near feet, and the Nick inside her head had fallen quiet as Captain General Bogo regarded her from across the massive desk that dominated the carriage.

Even sitting down, he loomed over her, silently regarding her, and Judy tried to match his neutral expression. She lasted about ten seconds before she couldn't wait any longer. "Captain General Bogo, sir, there's a book I need to—"

"Ensign Totchli," Captain General Bogo interrupted, speaking slowly.

His voice was deep and gravelly, and when he spoke Judy could feel the low rumble of it in her chest. When the buffalo had given the address at her graduation, he had been too far away for Judy to really make out, and seeing him more clearly felt as though it emphasized what she had heard about him. His face seemed permanently creased by concern, and there was a hardness to his eyes that she suspected never left them. Despite his age, he was still muscular beneath his uniform, although Judy was more than a little surprised at the platinum torc he wore around his neck; evidently he had been made a lord sometime after her commencement. Judy couldn't help but wonder at what had gone on while she had been outside of Zootopia; had Bogo made significant progress on finding the mammal or mammals responsible for the attempt on the princess's life and been rewarded for it?

"I have questions for you," Bogo continued, and his eyes seemed almost to drill through her, "What happens next depends on how you answer."

* * *

**Author's Notes:**

The two cheetahs being so close in appearance that Judy thinks they might be twins is a bit of a nod to one of the most interesting facts about real world cheetahs. Real cheetahs have remarkably low genetic diversity, thought to be caused by the species nearly being wiped out during the last ice age and recovering from a very small population. This lack of genetic diversity has some interesting effects, such as that cheetahs easily accept skin grafts from other cheetahs without the sort of immune response that would be triggered in humans.

"Del Oro" is Spanish for "Of Gold," which seemed to fit a springbok fairly well considering their coloration.

As previously established in chapter 11, and referenced a few times since, sabres are reserved for members of the City Guard at or above the rank of captain, which Judy certainly isn't.

And with this chapter, the two plotlines have finally come together! I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and if you're so inclined as to leave a comment I'd love to know what you thought.


	40. Chapter 40

She wasn't afraid of him, which was interesting. Even bound and helpless on the floor of his carriage, facing down his most emotionless stare, there wasn't so much as an ounce of fear on her face. The rabbit was dirty, dust caked into the fabric of her ruined uniform tunic and her breastplate dinged and scuffed. She was injured, if the bandages that wrapped her entire left arm were any indication. But she wasn't afraid.

"What species was your instructor in the use of quauhxicallis?" Bogo asked abruptly, breaking the silence he had allowed to linger after his deliberately ominous pronouncement that her fate rested with him.

The rabbit blinked up at him, obviously confused. "What species?" Bogo pressed.

The golden torc at her neck certainly looked real enough, the metal and insignia claiming that the rabbit was an ensign in the City Guard.

_Saying a thing does not make it true, Lord Bogo._ The queen's words came, unbidden, to Bogo's mind and he pushed them aside.

The fact that the rabbit before him looked to be Ensign Totchli didn't necessarily mean that she was. Out beyond the protection of the Middle Wall—the protection that the queen had decided was an acceptable risk to travel beyond—anything could have happened. The torc could be a fake, and the methods that usually worked for verifying that a mammal was part of the City Guard were currently worthless without the magic of the torcs active. Or the real Judy Totchli could have been murdered, her torc taken from her corpse and given to a different rabbit to wear. There were too many possibilities, all of them dire, and so Bogo had chosen one of the simplest methods of determining the rabbit's identity.

It was certainly possible for a different rabbit to stand in for Ensign Totchli, and just as possible for that rabbit to be prepared enough to make the illusion convincing. Given enough time, anyone could remember all the codes and regulations of the City Guard. They might even be prepared enough to describe the academy even if they had never set foot in it, or even to speak of the more memorable instructors. Jose Del Riendo, the hyena whose nervous and awkward chuckling at his own terrible jokes had been imitated by decades of students. Lucia of the Inner Baronies, who used the phrase "you're dead" like punctuation. But they wouldn't be prepared to describe Mateo Rumia.

He was almost completely unremarkable in every way. He wasn't fat or thin, dull or engaging. He was the sort of teacher students didn't like or dislike, a solid mammal who did his job without ever getting close to those he taught. But most importantly for the question Bogo had asked, he was—"A bison," the rabbit said, "Professor Rumia."

The confusion was still written across her face, but a degree of tension Bogo hadn't been aware he was carrying in his back left him. It wasn't enough to say that the rabbit wasn't some kind of threat, but it was enough for him to at least believe that she was who she claimed to be. The fox was a different story, and Bogo glanced from the rabbit—Ensign Totchli—to him.

The fox certainly didn't look like any alchemist Bogo had ever seen before. Leaving aside the fact that he was a predator, his clothes were far too plain. Even allowing for some damage and wear, there wasn't nearly enough embroidery to equal what Bogo had seen even the lowest apprentice alchemists wearing, and his bronze torc was strangely unornamented. Bogo had never run across a merchant of any kind who didn't decorate their torc in some way, whether it was with brightly colored threads and glass beads or intricately worked medallions of precious metal and gemstones, and he didn't trust the simplicity of it. It was the sort of thing a mammal did when they tried too hard to seem casual, a little lie that likely set the tone for whatever it was the fox spent most of his time doing.

Even with Bogo's considerable training and experience in interrogation, he couldn't get anything out of a sleeping mammal, and he paused as he considered his next move. He could wake the fox up—assuming that he wasn't simply pretending to be asleep in hopes of listening in on whatever discussion went on without him. There was, however, a simple way to test that. "Ensign Totchli," he said, turning his attention back to her as abruptly as he could, "Is the fox Nicholas of the Middle Baronies?"

"Yes sir," she said, her answer immediate.

Bogo nodded once. "Nicholas of the Middle Baronies," he said, drawing the words out as slowly as he possibly could, standing up and bringing himself to his full height.

The fox and the rabbit had been separated by a good four or five feet on his floor, and Bogo stepped around his desk until he was standing over the supposed alchemist. Unlike Ensign Totchli, who strained at her bonds to try to position herself better to watch what was going on, the fox was completely limp. Except for the regular rise and fall of his chest he might have been dead, his head lolled at an uncomfortable-looking angle with the tip of his tongue poking beyond his muzzle. Bogo drew his sabre from the sheath at his side, deliberately letting the metal of the blade drag against the buckle that attached it to his belt. He made the whispering sound of metal against metal last as long as possible, watching out of the corner of his eye as Ensign Totchli's expression resolved from confusion into worry. That, too, was interesting. "You've been sentenced to death for treason," Bogo said, and he raised the sword in preparation for swinging it down towards the fox's unprotected neck.

"Stop!" Ensign Totchli cried, and her voice sounded unnaturally thick.

The fox hadn't moved at all, betraying either a truly impressive degree of self-control beyond what any mammal could reasonably be expected to exhibit or the fact that he really was asleep. "Please, don't do it," Totchli said, her voice cracking, "He hasn't committed treason, he—"

"So he  _is_ asleep. I do apologize, Ensign Totchli," Bogo interrupted, and he smoothly sheathed his blade in a single motion, "But it's necessary for you to understand the stakes."

Bogo had neither liked nor enjoyed the little bit of theater he had engaged in; threatening a citizen, even a fox, was below the dignity of his office. But he had no time to waste in lengthy explanations, and he thought he had succeeded in several goals at once. Beyond verifying that the fox really was asleep, and impressing upon the ensign just how serious the situation was, he had also learned something he hadn't expected.

She cared about him.

In the way that an upstanding member of the City Guard would care about any civilian, increased by the naturally emotional nature of rabbits, perhaps. But Bogo thought there was something more to it. Certainly mammals who went through experiences that nearly killed them tended to end up as friends. Or perhaps...

Bogo brushed the thought aside. Ensign Totchli trusted the fox, whether or not he turned out to be who he claimed to be. At least in his case, it'd be quite simple to verify his identity; if he couldn't perform alchemy then he was an impostor. Or he had somehow cheated his way through becoming certified to perform alchemy jobs for the city, but that was a problem for later.

"The stakes?" Totchli asked.

There was genuine heat in her words, which seemed only fair. It had been a nasty move he had made, no matter how much circumstances might excuse it, and there was a very real possibility he had given her a reason to distrust him, to be less than forthcoming with information. It was the gamble he had made, but there was no way of taking it back.

"Sir, Lieutenant Colonel Cencerro made everyone in Phoenix disappear. He's planning something and—"

"The stakes," Bogo interrupted, "Are that someone committed treason. Perhaps not you or your companion, but someone. And if you are  _anything_  less than honest and forthcoming in your testimony, you'll be helping them get away with it. That's also treason."

She didn't respond, and Bogo let the silence last only a moment. "I want to hear everything. From the beginning. Every detail, no matter how unimportant it might seem."

As it turned out, Ensign Totchli was not particularly good at telling stories.

Perhaps she might have done a better job organizing her thoughts into a written report, but he had put her on the spot, and she stumbled over her words, occasionally diving down tangents and cutting herself off. More than once, he caught her glancing at the sleeping fox, who hadn't given any kind of indication that he was waking up. The details came out slowly, and Bogo let them paint him a picture.

To a certain point, everything Totchli reported aligned with what he knew. She had been sent as an escort as a last minute replacement for the mammal originally assigned to the job of bringing the fox to Phoenix to enter a bid for a public works project. Totchli had jumped ahead a bit at that point, saying that Cencerro had claimed the original mammal assigned to be the escort would have framed the fox for something, and Bogo had made a note of it before urging her to continue.

From there, she had nothing of any particular interest to report on the journey she had made to Phoenix on foot with the fox at her side. They had made excellent time, but at no point had spotted any other mammals on the road. It was more or less what Bogo had expected; it aligned with the convoy schedules, at least. He had half-hoped for some unusual traffic to give another clue, but he hadn't expected things to be so easy.

Once in Phoenix, Totchli claimed to have reported to Lieutenant Colonel Cencerro in his capacity as the head of the Phoenix City Guard. That was strictly by the book protocol and quite unsurprising, as was the fact that Cencerro had divided up his troops to search Phoenix for the mammals Bogo had requested. Totchli didn't have any information to report on the tiger and the wolf who lived in Phoenix and practiced blood magic, which was rather disappointing. The reason for it was quite surprising; she claimed that Cencerro had ordered her to spy on Nicholas of the Middle Baronies rather than join the ongoing effort to find those blood magicians.

If she was telling the truth, Bogo had to wonder why Cencerro would have done that. Had he perhaps been partnered with one or both of those blood magicians, quietly feeding them information so that they could avoid his patrols? If he didn't trust a green ensign with contributing to a simple search, why had he trusted her enough to assign her to determine the fox's true motives for visiting Phoenix?

Ensign Totchli claimed that Cencerro was suspicious of the fox—Nick, she called him, with a familiarity that struck Bogo again—showing up in Phoenix just after an unsuccessful attack on the princess where blood magicians in Phoenix were prime suspects. That Cencerro's thoughts had apparently echoed his own struck Bogo as a peculiar bit of irony; as much as he disliked the sheep he was nothing if not competent.

In Totchli's version of events, she hadn't observed the fox doing anything suspicious; he had never gotten the chance to put in his bid for the water purification project, but had attempted to purchase a book on alchemy only to find the shopkeeper dead. She said Cencerro had shown up shortly thereafter and arrested both her and the alchemist, throwing them in Phoenix's cell meant to prevent alchemists from escaping.

Where her story became difficult to believe was when she got to the point where Cencerro had visited them in that cell, gloating about his victory over them and claiming to have held sway over the mammal originally assigned to escort the fox. "That doesn't sound like the Diego Cencerro I know," Bogo interrupted mildly once she got to that point.

It didn't, but he was more interested in her reaction at the moment than her words. "I know," Totchli said, her ears drooping, "It sounds crazy. And he was so... so cold and stiff before. When I first met him, I mean. But when he came to the cell, he sounded like he was  _enjoying_  it."

Bogo nodded slowly. In his experience, when mammals made up stories to cover up crimes, they tended to make one or more of three basic mistakes. They overlooked details that should have been there, as he had tested Totchli on when it came to her time at the academy. More than once over the course of his career, he had watched testimonies fall apart over such trivialities; there had been one time a stoat who had claimed to have witnessed a robbery couldn't even name the street the robbery had been on. A little prodding had quickly unraveled his testimony and revealed that he hadn't been anywhere near the scene of the crime and was trying to frame someone. Sometimes criminals gave too much detail; the unfortunate truth of memory was that no one could remember everything in perfectly vivid detail. The more embellishments a story had, the less likely Bogo was to believe that it was true. The final way could be the most subtle, though: they said what they thought the interrogator wanted to hear.

So far, Totchli's testimony had sounded true enough, if only because of how bizarre it was. He would have expected Cencerro to act the same as he ever was if he was really guilty of what Totchli accused him of. But then again, perhaps she was simply adding too much detail, telling a story that sounded plausible to her.

"Sir?" Totchli said tentatively, interrupting his thoughts.

Bogo realized his attention had wandered away for an instant. "Continue, ensign," he said, waving one hoof.

"He said that he didn't have enough members of the City Guard in Phoenix loyal to him to just kill Nick and me without a court martial," she continued, and Bogo hoped dearly that it was true.

If Cencerro had led a grand conspiracy out of Phoenix, it was comforting to think that he had been limited in the number of co-conspirators he had. "So he said that he'd leave us in the cell and we'd die in a few days anyway."

"You didn't," Bogo observed.

He was, he had to admit, more than a little curious as to how they had escaped a cell designed specifically to contain an alchemist. "No sir," Totchli replied, "But before he left, he said he'd be the captain general. He, ah..."

She paused awkwardly, and swallowed hard before continuing. "He said your mistakes would lose you the position. And that he'd be a hero soon."

Her tone was deeply apologetic, but Bogo was careful to keep his face a neutral mask. Frankly, it was a little grating that Totchli was trying to be careful around his feelings; if hearing someone accuse him of making a mistake was enough to hurt him he never would have risen to his rank. "I see," Bogo said, "Did he say anything else? Anything at all?"

"He said he'd tell my parents I died an honorable death," she said.

Cencerro had claimed that she had died such a death, and Bogo was reasonably confident that she was who she claimed to be. As Bogo saw it, there were really only three possibilities. Either virtually everything Ensign Totchli had said was a lie, or virtually everything Lieutenant Colonel Cencerro had said was. The third option, that the truth was somewhere in the middle with Cencerro either being mistaken or deliberately lying about Totchli's death seemed implausible to say the least. If that was the case, why would Totchli spin such an elaborate lie? It wasn't impossible—for all he knew, Totchli was a conspirator who had deliberately incapacitated the mammal ahead of her to escort the alchemist, and was now coming to him to muddy the truth. But unless she thought she had killed Cencerro or otherwise gotten him out of the way, that made no sense; surely she would have known that Cencerro's testimony wouldn't align with hers.

Bogo managed to snap his attention back to her before Ensign Totchli's impatience won out, which was something of a victory for him; it was getting to be somewhat embarrassing how easily his focus seemed to drift. The part of her story about her escape from the cell was interesting only inasmuch as it revealed how poorly designed the cell was; thankfully the high-security cells in the heart of Zootopia had no such vulnerability.

From there, she explained how they had found a book in Cencerro's office, which she said was in the bag on the floor. Considering that Bogo hadn't yet trusted her enough to break her bonds (if his occasional lapses in focus were embarrassing, being killed by a bunny would have been even more so), he cautiously opened the bag.  _If it explodes, this all becomes someone else's problem_ , he thought darkly, but nothing happened.

The contents of the bag seemed to be mostly assorted alchemy supplies, but he found the book easily enough. It was a small ledger with a bland black cover, but as he pulled it out a frown involuntarily crossed his face. He had the vague notion he had seen a book exactly like it before, and that quite recently, but he couldn't remember where. Then again, it was rather unremarkable; there were likely hundreds if not thousands of books that looked identical to it from the outside. As for the contents of the book, Bogo thought them much more likely to be relatively unique; he saw instantly that it was certainly a code book for encrypting and decrypting messages. "So Cencerro must have been in contact with someone else, probably outside Phoenix," Ensign Totchli explained needlessly but eagerly, "I couldn't tell if the last message was one he received or one he sent, but the timing must have been important, right?"

Bogo nodded, and then carefully closed the ledger and set it aside. If he could find the mammal or mammals who had the matching partner of the ledger, it'd be proof of their guilt. Or at least, that someone had tried framing them, but it would be a tremendous start. He made a note to himself to have the belongings of the members of the queen's council searched; there was no telling if he might have a stroke of luck. "Continue, please," he said, rather than explaining himself to the ensign, "I want to hear your impression of Phoenix as you left."

Considering that he had his newest member of the City Guard flying reconnaissance, he was quite interested in whether Totchli's testimony would align with the little rodent's once he returned. "It was like everyone had just up and left, sir," the bunny explained, "There was no one in Phoenix, just abandoned meals and tables and chairs."

"And I know how this must sound," Totchli added hastily, "But maybe the army around Phoenix is made up of the citizens of Phoenix. Something that controls their minds. If that’s possible, that is."

That seemed to Bogo a rather fanciful flight of imagination, but Totchli was young, inexperienced, and a rabbit. He could certainly forgive wild speculation so long as she reported the facts accurately. "I see," Bogo replied as neutrally as possible, "We are considering all the possibilities, ensign."

She nodded eagerly; apparently Bogo had successfully kept his feelings off his face. Totchli's subsequent description of the mammals surrounding Phoenix told him nothing he didn't already know, and she hurried through her explanation of escaping through the ruins. She hadn't seen any sign of the invading army entering through those ruins, which didn't necessarily mean that they hadn't, but it was another point of data. Her explanation of her injured arm was of no interest to Bogo; he was well aware of the danger that the monsters under Phoenix posed. He had pressed her along before she could go into any kind of detail, and it didn't take her long to reach the point where his scouts had found her and the fox in the wastelands, tired and hungry.

"Thank you, Ensign Totchli," Bogo said, once he was sure she was done, "Your testimony will be invaluable. I'll want to talk to the fox once he wakes, of course."

If Totchli was telling the truth, as he was starting to suspect she was, he was not surprised that the fox was unconscious; he knew even master alchemists could be exhausted by complex bits of alchemy, and breaking out of a cell and then making a bridge sounded as though they would fit the bill. Adding to that several days of little food or water, and it was somewhat surprising he was still alive.

But whether or not the fox lived was not his primary concern at the moment; Bogo ran one thick finger down his meticulous notes, and realized he hadn't asked about something he had meant to. Cursing his attention's tendency to drift, Bogo looked up over his desk at where Ensign Totchli was still on the floor.

She hadn't complained about the restraints at all, which put her a step above most criminals Bogo had arrested, and while she looked tired there was an eager-to-please brightness in her eyes that hadn't dimmed. "Just one more thing, Ensign Totchli, and then we can look into finding you some more suitable arrangements. There was a messenger bird that made it out of Phoenix shortly before communication stopped," Bogo said, eying Totchli carefully, "There was a female shrew riding it, who might have used the name 'Fermina.' Did you see her, or see Nicholas speaking with her?"

**Author's Notes:**

Bogo remembers something that the queen said in chapter 28 when relating a story from her own youth; "Saying a thing does not make it true, Lord Bogo."

Del Riendo's name is derived from the Spanish word for "laughing," which seemed appropriate for a hyena.

The instructor who peppers her speech with the phrase "you're dead," is naturally a reference to Judy's drill instructor from the movie, who seems to see the possibility for fatal consequences in everything.

In real life, swords generally don't make an impressive noise when you draw them from a sheath; that's a bit of Hollywood dramatic flair. You don't want your blade being dulled by scraping it against something metal, so sheaths are either made out of or lined with something relatively soft, letting you draw in near-silence. In this instance, Bogo wanted a dramatic sound, hence him deliberately letting his sword rub against a metal buckle as he draws it.

Bogo notes that the ledger Nick and Judy found is small, whereas Judy did not; he is quite a bit larger than her, so it's really all a matter of perspective.

As always, thanks for reading! If you're so inclined as to leave a comment, I'd love to know what you thought!

 


	41. Chapter 41

Two Nicks made Judy's head hurt.

The real Nick was snoring on the floor, and hadn't moved so much as an inch since being thrown into Bogo's carriage. The other Nick, the one who seemed to have taken up residence in her head, had moved beyond simply being a voice nearly the instant after Bogo first spoke. She could actually  _see_ him, casually sitting on the floor and leaning against the slumbering form of the real Nick.

"Does it really matter if  _I'm_ not real?" he said; even with his newfound apparent solidity he had apparently retained his ability to understand her thoughts, "You're going to need some help getting through an interrogation."

The other Nick chuckled, brushing a paw through the thick fur of the real Nick's tail. "And he's not exactly much help right now, is he?"

Judy didn't quite have the words to describe how odd seeing that touch had been. The real Nick's fur hadn't moved, of course. There was simply no way that a hallucination—maybe brought on by some combination of hunger, thirst, and exhaustion, but undeniably a hallucination—could actually touch a real object. It would be crazy to think that it could. And yet...

It was as though she had seen both possibilities, the other Nick's paw passing through strands of fur without touching them but also the other Nick's paw sweeping those strands aside. A searing wave of pain had gone through her head, like a nail was being driven into her brain, and the other Nick had pulled his paw back from the real Nick's tail. "Sorry," he said, "I won't do that again."

Before she could even begin to formulate any kind of thought, the other Nick gestured toward Bogo. "You might want to pay attention to what he's saying," he said, and he had turned his own attention toward the head of the City Guard.

"What species was your instructor in the use of quauhxicallis?" Bogo asked suddenly, very nearly the instant after she had turned her full attention back to him.

Her resulting confusion at the bizarre first question had been mixed with concern that there was something wrong with her. Crazy mammals had no part being in the City Guard, after all, and if she was hallucinating a second Nick, could everything else she saw and her be similarly unreliable? "No, it's just me," the other Nick said, interrupting her thoughts, "And you didn't miss anything. Big, tall, and serious here is trying to figure out if you're really who you say you are. Throw you off-balance. They didn't teach you how to do interrogations?"

Judy had, in fact, learned the basics, although she hadn't served long enough to get any practical experience. Her mission to escort Nick had been her first real assignment, but she realized that the other Nick was right. Bogo was trying to be an intimidating, unreadable interrogator, and to that end he was succeeding remarkably well. In her position, arms and legs bound, laying on the floor, she was forced to literally look up to him, and he was staggeringly tall. The face atop that mountain of muscle was implacable, as though he didn't particularly care one way or the other what happened to her.

"A bison," Judy answered, "Professor Rumia."

Having an idea of what Bogo was trying might have been more comforting if it hadn't been for the continued presence of the other Nick. She refused to believe that everyone who had ever said that rabbits were too fragile for service in the City Guard was right after all; there had to be a reasonable explanation rather than that she had simply cracked under the pressure. Maybe once she had the chance to get some food and water into her stomach and get a little sleep the vision would vanish. She could tell Nick about it, let him tease her about what it meant about her that she had seen a hallucination of him, and that would be that. Just an odd little thing that had happened once and would never happen again.

"I'm not sure I would count on that," the other Nick said, his voice full of the wry tone she knew so well from the real Nick, "But if it makes it easier for you..."

He shrugged, and Judy couldn't help but envy his apparent freedom of movement.  _His_ arms and legs weren't bound, and he looked perfectly at ease sitting on the floor next to himself. Unlike the real Nick, the other Nick didn't look travel worn at all; his clothes—the same outfit Nick had been wearing when they first met—were immaculately clean, and his fur seemed to all but glow in the light of the alchemical torches that lined the carriage. If Nick had been cleaner—or if the other Nick had been dirtier—Judy didn't think she would have been able to tell them apart.

"I'll take that as a compliment," the other Nick said.

It was more than a little unsettling that he didn't need her to say anything, or even just think at him hard, to be able to respond. "I  _am_ in your head, Carrots," he said, "And you probably don't want Bogo thinking you're crazy by talking to no one, right? That's why I'm sitting here."

Judy realized what he meant; if Bogo noticed her looking at the other Nick, it'd simply look as though she was looking at the real one. "Clever bunny," the other Nick said, nodding approvingly.

Judy hoped that she wasn't appearing too crazy to Bogo; he had been silent for a while, probably carefully observing her. "Is the fox Nicholas of the Middle Baronies?" Bogo asked suddenly.

"Yes sir," Judy said, doing her best to pay him close attention.

Bogo's face was still unreadable, even as he slowly stood up from behind his desk and walked over to where the real Nick was on the ground. He stood so close to him that the other Nick scooted away so that they wouldn't touch. Not that they could touch, of course, but after what seeing the other Nick interact with reality had done to her head Judy was glad that there wouldn't be a repeat.

Bogo nodded, his face a mask. The other Nick watched him, a wary expression on his face, but he didn't say anything. "Nicholas of the Middle Baronies," Bogo said, seeming to drag the words out as though he didn't believe that they were true.

Judy strained at the straps tying her limbs together, trying to position herself better to see Bogo's face. It occurred to her that if Bogo was a part of Cencerro's conspiracy, the buffalo had them completely at his mercy. As if in response to her thoughts, Bogo reached down to his waist and drew his sabre.

It was much larger than the one that Nick had made for her, and much less elaborate. But the slowly emerging blade looked wickedly sharp, gleaming mercilessly in the light. The other Nick's eyes widened in surprise, but Judy doubted he could anything else. "You've been sentenced to death for treason," Bogo said, each word hard, and he drew the blade up.

For one instant—one terrible instant—Judy couldn't get any words out. She thought she was about to watch Nick die, falling beneath her commanding officer's sword, and after him she would surely be next. It was monstrously unfair; they had barely had any time together at all, and they had fought too hard to die so easily. Judy had killed a cavern full of terrible monsters for Nick, and he had pushed himself to his breaking point to save her when it had nearly cost Judy her arm and her life. And now she was completely helpless to do anything to save him.

"Stop!" Judy cried, and her voice in her ears didn't sound like her own.

"Please, don't do it," Judy begged, not even trying to "He hasn't committed treason, he—"

"So he is asleep. I do apologize, Ensign Totchli," Bogo interrupted, and he sheathed his sword as though he hadn't been about to murder an innocent mammal, "But it's necessary for you to understand the stakes."

"I don't think I like your captain general very much," the other Nick observed, "But you must not get the top position by being soft."

The other Nick's face had resolved itself back into a familiar expression of mild disinterest, but Judy tried not to pay the vision any mind no matter how much she agreed with him in the moment. "The stakes?" she demanded of Bogo.

There was a pit of genuine anger in her stomach that surprised her at its depth, and she couldn't back down even as the other Nick tried to talk her into it. "Carrots, you're letting him get you worked up. You really need to—"

"Sir, Lieutenant Colonel Cencerro made everyone in Phoenix disappear. He's planning something and—" Judy began, cutting the voice of the other Nick off before Bogo spoke over her.

"The stakes," Bogo interrupted, "Are that someone committed treason. Perhaps not you or your companion, but someone. And if you are anything less than honest and forthcoming in your testimony, you'll be helping them get away with it. That's also treason."

Judy could feel herself trembling, and she tried to get herself back under control. The other Nick might just be a crazy hallucination born out of her tired and starved mind, feeding her own thoughts back to her, but he was right. Bogo was pushing her to get her off balance, preparing to doubt everything she said.

"That's better," the other Nick said with an encouraging tone, "And for what it's worth, you're not crazy."

"I want to hear everything. From the beginning. Every detail, no matter how unimportant it might seem," Bogo said, and Judy took a deep breath.

Judy couldn't help but feel that she might have done a better job without the other Nick offering her suggestions or reminders, but after Bogo's intimidation attempt, things went surprisingly well. Bogo had even cut her off and told her to skip past her encounter with the monsters under Phoenix before she could so much as mention her arm. "That was a lucky break," the other Nick commented at Bogo's interruption, "Although I kind of wanted to hear you tell that part of the story."

From there, the story had gotten easier to tell. She knew she still had to tell Bogo about her arm, and she fully intended to, but so long as his orders were to tell him everything he thought was relevant as quickly as possible she would do her best. By the end, Bogo even seemed to have relaxed a bit.

"Thank you, Ensign Totchli," Bogo said, with a politeness that was somewhat surprising for a mammal who had threatened Nick with a sword not too long before, "Your testimony will be invaluable. I'll want to talk to the fox once he wakes, of course."

"That'll be fun, I'm sure," the other Nick commented darkly, glancing down at the sleeping face of the real Nick, "Something tells me he's not going to go quite as easy."

Judy couldn't help but think that he was right, and as Bogo shuffled through papers on his desk she wondered if it was the right moment to bring up her arm. Bogo would learn of it eventually, of course, and maybe it would be better if he didn't get the impression that she was deliberately hiding it. Judy wanted to think that Bogo never would have gotten a job that put him so close to the princess if he hated chimeras, but maybe he considered the princess an exception. As Judy was about to speak up to get Bogo's attention, he looked up from his papers, a frown creasing his face.

"Just one more thing, Ensign Totchli, and then we can look into finding you some more suitable arrangements. There was a messenger bird that made it out of Phoenix shortly before communication stopped," Bogo said, and his eyes seemed to be boring holes through her, "There was a female shrew riding it, who might have used the name 'Fermina.' Did you see her, or see Nicholas speaking with her?"

At Bogo's words, Judy's mouth went instantly dry and any thought of mentioning her arm instantly fell from her mind. "I—" she began, "Fermina?"

She could feel her nose twitching and was powerless to stop it. If she lied, and Bogo found out, he would almost certainly go through with his threat to find her guilty of treason. And from the way Bogo had referred to Nick as "the fox" she didn't think he'd be any more lenient on him. But if she told the truth, Bogo might put Nick to death. It was impossible, each option no better than the other.

"Yes," Bogo said slowly, "Fermina. Do you recall anything that might help us find this shrew?"

He knew.

There was no doubt in Judy's mind that Bogo was reading her face like an open book; it felt as though her ears were burning like charcoals. Judy swallowed hard. "The..." she began, "The thing is..."

"Oh, Carrots," the other Nick said with a sigh, and he pushed himself to his feet.

He was standing next to the real Nick, shaking his head. "Let me save you some trouble. Wake up!" the other Nick said, and as he spoke he directed a kick at the head of the real Nick.

The moment of contact between the two of them sent an eye-watering burst of pain through Judy's head that made what she had felt before feel like nothing. It was as though red-hot spikes were being shoved through her skull, the two different visions refusing to overlap. The other Nick's foot passed through the real Nick's head even as it made contact and Nick's head snapped back. The memories warred with each other, spots of color bursting in her vision.

And then the other Nick was gone and the real Nick sat up.

Judy realized her jaw had literally dropped in surprise. It shouldn't have been possible. The other Nick shouldn't have been able to actually do anything. And yet, somehow he had. The timing made it impossible for it to be anything else; the other Nick was  _real_.

But in the name of all the gods, Judy had no idea what that meant. Was the other Nick actually Nick, using a power she had never heard of alchemists having? Or was he something else? Judy had never before heard of a chimera being created in quite the same way as her; chimeras like the princess were created before they were born, not as adults. Had something, some piece of Nick, slipped into her head along with the copies of his internal organs and his arm? Did the real Nick even know about the other Nick that had started as a voice in her head?

Judy almost missed it when Nick spoke, but the fox had his attention firmly on Bogo. "I can tell you a lot more about Fermina than the ensign here can," he said, with a casualness that was impressive.

There was a surprising confidence in his voice, considering that he couldn't move his arms or legs at all. The only reason he had been able to sit up, so far as Judy could tell, was that the woven straps constricting his limbs were somewhat looser than her own. Otherwise, he was no freer to move than she was. "Is that so?" Bogo asked, the question so flat that it sounded more like a statement.

"It is," Nick said brightly, "Her real name is Fernanda. You might know her father. Alfonso? Tlatoani? Oh, what am I saying? You arrested him, of course you know who he is."

Nick laughed, glancing around as though he was wondering why no one was laughing with him. Judy was too stunned to say anything, and even Bogo seemed completely flummoxed by Nick's willingness to talk. "Anyway, she wanted a fake torc, so I made one and sold it to her. That's about it."

It seemed to take Bogo a moment to find his voice. "You've just confessed to a number of serious crimes," he said at last, in such a way that made Judy think that the absolute last thing he had expected was for Nick to do so.

"I don't think I have, actually," he said, "What laws did I break?"

"Counterfeiting torcs is—" Judy began automatically, but Nick cut her off.

"Counterfeiting torcs is a crime only within the boundaries of the Middle Wall," Nick said, and then he looked down at the straps preventing his arms from moving and frowned.

"Is there any chance you could loosen these? It's hard to gesture and they're really starting to chafe," he said, and then looked back up at Bogo, "I think that might be a loophole that was left there on purpose, but I don't write the laws or mass-produce torcs. I just made the one for her, and I did it in Phoenix."

He was, Judy realized, right. She had memorized Zootopia's legal code, and it had never even occurred to her that it was a loophole someone could take advantage of. "And bringing a counterfeit torc past the Middle Wall is also a crime, fox," Bogo said, and Nick nodded agreeably.

"That's true. But if Fernanda decides to do that, it's her breaking the law, not me. You wouldn't arrest a sword-maker if one of his customers bought a sword and then stabbed someone, would you?"

"You were consorting with a criminal," Bogo said, all but spitting the words, and Nick shook his head.

"Her father was arrested for his many crimes—and that was a great job on the City Guard's part, I'd applaud you if I could move my paws—but I don't remember  _her_  committing any."

"Fernanda is wanted for questioning," Bogo said, and it was either her imagination of Judy could hear his teeth grinding.

"Which doesn't make her a criminal," Nick countered, his tone smug, "You don't have—"

"Do you think this is a game, fox?" Bogo roared.

His voice was painfully loud, and his face had twisted into an expression of rage. He slammed his massive hooves into his desk, scattering papers as he stood up and stormed over to Nick. With no apparent effort, he lifted Nick with one arm, holding him inches from his face. Nick’s eyes widened, his smugness suddenly gone, and he dangled helplessly. "I don't need the  _law_ to have you tried for treason, fox," he said, "I can—"

"You can't," Judy said, so quietly at first that she doubted Bogo had heard her.

"You can't," she repeated, more loudly, and she looked up at Bogo.

His chest was heaving with emotion, flecks of spittle around his blunt muzzle. He looked dangerous, a mammal not quite in control of himself. "If we start executing mammals without proof, without making sure of their guilt, we're no better than they are," Judy said, her voice firm.

"I'm trying to save the kingdom, ensign," Bogo said.

His voice had gotten low and dangerous, but he was still holding Nick by the strap that crossed the fox's chest. He shook Nick as if for emphasis. "The kingdom and everyone who lives in it," he said, but the anger seemed to be fading out of him.

"And if I had been a part of Cencerro's conspiracy," Nick said, with a gentleness that Judy found impressive, "I could have killed you just now."

He waggled his paws—which, Judy saw, he had somehow gotten free of his bonds—and kept speaking in that same even tone. "I could have transmuted your blood to acid or the air in your lungs to poison, but I didn't."

Judy realized then what Nick had done. He had deliberately antagonized the captain general, pushing him to the point where Nick would have had an opportunity an assassin couldn't possibly overlook. Nick was right; as an alchemist simply being able to touch Bogo meant that he could have killed the buffalo if he had wanted to. It was something she would have never thought of herself, to effectively weaponize the truth, and yet it seemed to have worked.

"You've proven your point, fox," Bogo said, and he lowered Nick back to the ground.

Not gently, but not roughly either. "I'm... sorry you had to see that, ensign," Bogo said as he retook his seat behind his desk.

If it bothered Nick that the apology hadn't been directed at him, he didn't show it. "We want to help, sir. Cencerro needs to be stopped before he can finish whatever it is he has planned," Judy said.

Bogo sighed, and suddenly he looked older. Weaker. He must have been pushing himself to his own breaking point, and Judy couldn't even begin to imagine the burden he had been under. "I'll still want to know everything about Fernanda," he said, "Alfonso might be involved, and he might have pulled her in."

"Of course," Nick said, nodding, and he actually managed to sound sincere.

Bogo began pulling his papers together, and Judy could practically feel the fragile trust he was putting in them. She took a deep breath. "Sir, there's something else you should know," she said.

"Judy," Nick began, shooting her a warning look, but she plunged on.

"I want you to know that I'm not hiding anything, sir. That you can trust me. It's about my arm..."

* * *

 

**Author's Notes:**

I don't really have much to say for this chapter. Revisiting a conversation from the other side was interesting as a writer, hopefully you found it interesting as a reader!

Although Bogo does probably owe Nick an apology for his threats, it's been previously noted in the story that nobles don't apologize to commoners, something that Bogo's been on the other side of before. Judy is the daughter of a noble family and an officer of the City Guard, which I imagine to be the one organization where the rigid rules of high society have some flexibility.

As always, thanks for reading! I'd love to hear what you thought if you're so inclined as to leave a comment.

 


	42. Chapter 42

As Bogo cut through the straps binding Ensign Totchli's limbs—the fox had already freed himself completely unaided—he couldn't help but wonder if he was doing the right thing. Did he actually trust the rabbit's testimony, or was he simply trying to save face after being embarrassed by a fox?

And he had been embarrassed, he knew that much. He could try to make excuses for himself—that he was tired, that it really was the most important problem he had to solve, even that he had been deliberately provoked—but they all rang false. The fox had provoked him, it was true, with what Bogo recognized after the fact as a truly impressive amount of skill. But Bogo had had every opportunity to realize what was going on, as the fox continually and deliberately drew attention to his paws and his bindings, but he had let every single one of those opportunities pass him by. The temper that had almost cost him his career decades ago had flared up with a brutal intensity Bogo couldn't recall having felt anytime in the recent past, and in his moment of rage he had nearly committed a gross violation of his sworn oath.

Until the rabbit had stopped him.

That, Bogo decided as he watched her rub at her wrists as she sat up, was what had influenced him the most. Totchli obviously cared for the fox, and deeply at that, but she had remembered her own oath. She had known what the fox had eventually confessed with deliberate casualness; of that much he was entirely certain. Totchli simply couldn't keep her emotions off her face, and if the academy still had patolli gambling rings Bogo was sure she had never walked away a winner. Bogo was equally certain, though, that she was going to tell him everything she knew about Fermina, no matter the cost it might have for her own credibility or for the continued freedom of the alchemist. How many members of the City Guard had that kind of devotion to duty? A certain amount of corruption was an inevitable truth of the job, no matter how much Bogo hated it, but even the guards who didn't take bribes had a cost. There would be something—or someone—that they'd bend or break the rules for.

But not for Totchli.

He couldn't help but feel a grudging admiration for her, even as he wished she hadn't been born a rabbit. If she was a larger mammal it'd be a lot easier to help her career along once he got to the bottom of the situation in Phoenix and the attempts on the princess's life. Assuming that he succeeded and there was still a City Guard left after everything was over, of course.

But Bogo pushed that maudlin thought aside as he watched Totchli take one of the chairs in front of his desk. She had said that it'd be best if she showed him rather than simply tell him, and he had agreed. The fox, after his single sharp warning, hadn't spoken again, and his eyes were also on Totchli as she reached over with her right paw and began unwinding the bandages from her left. "An Ehecatl nearly bit my arm off," she said as the tightly wrapped bandages started coming loose, "I almost died."

Bogo couldn't help but frown at that. Ehecatls, he knew, had mouths like the cruelest traps a mammal could devise, full of wickedly sharp teeth designed to strip flesh from bone. But they were venomous, too, and Bogo had never heard of a mammal surviving a bite except from juvenile Ehecatls that hadn't come into their venom yet. And even then, of all the mammals he had ever heard of who survived an Ehecatl bite, he had never heard of one being as small as a rabbit.

He wasn't sure what he was expecting as more bandages came off—perhaps that Totchli's arm would be horribly withered, or even that the bandages were the only thing holding putrefying flesh onto her bones—but her paw didn't look out of the ordinary to him. The fur covering it was dark brown rather than gray with a white underside like her other paw, but not every mammal's coloration was symmetrical. But as more and more of the bandages came off, Bogo saw that partway up Totchli's forearm the dark brown gave way to red-orange. As he looked more closely, even the texture and the length of the fur seemed to be off, and there was something odd about that color. The color was quite vivid; it looked to be exactly the same as the—"Nicholas healed me with alchemy," Totchli continued, flexing the fingers of her left paw, "He made me a copy of his own arm."

Bogo had seen quite a few of the wonders that alchemy was capable of, as there seemed to be little alchemists enjoyed more than showing each other up. And while the attempts to heal the prince consort with a philosopher's stone had failed, he had seen plenty of successes. Blind mammals who had their sight restored. Crippled mammals who walked again. He had even seen the heir to a noble family who had suffered such extensive burns in an accident that it was impossible to tell his species be fully restored to perfect health. But he had never seen anything like Totchli's arm. Even chimeras like the princess were the blended result of two species, something new and unique in each case. "I guess I'm a chimera now," Totchli continued, and her tone was almost apologetic.

With the bandages completely off her arm, Bogo could see the point where it had been attached, the gradual transition of red-orange to gray and the vein-like traceries of fox fur that continued up her shoulder. He understood in that moment what the fox had done, and he also realized why the fox had seemed to warn Totchli about mentioning it to him.

It shouldn't have bothered Bogo that a fox didn't think much of him. Just about every fox he had ever met had been a thief of some kind or another with absolutely no room to take the moral high ground. And the practiced ease with which he had been manipulated, to say nothing of the fox's obvious connection to Alfonso of New Quimichin, made Bogo suspect that the fox before him had a past about as shady as possible. But despite all of that, it seemed the alchemist had expected him, the member of the City Guard most devoted to the princess's welfare, to think less of Totchli for being a chimera. It was more than a little insulting, and the worst of it was that Bogo wasn't sure it was entirely undeserved. But his own feelings were completely meaningless to the dilemma before him, and he pushed the thought aside. "To be frank, Ensign Totchli, I don't particularly care," Bogo said, doing his best to project an authoritative air of indifference, "So long as you can carry out your duties, you're still an active member of the City Guard."

Something like relief mixed with anxiety washed over her face as she seemed to take something out of his words he hadn't deliberately put in them. "That's— That's another thing, sir. I'm... Ever since..." she fumbled over her words, and then suddenly turned to the fox, "Nick, I've been seeing you."

"I wasn't invisible before, Ca— Ensign. Are you feeling alright?" he replied, and Bogo couldn't help but wonder what he had been about to call Totchli even as he tried to read the fox's expression.

He thought that there was concern there, but whether that was all that was there he couldn't tell. "No, I saw— There were  _two_  of you. Then the other one kicked you and you woke up the instant he did it and then  _he_  vanished and it was like you knew exactly what Captain General Bogo and I were—"

"Slow down there," the fox said, putting his paws out, "No one kicked me awake; I woke up a couple minutes before I started talking. Took some time to loosen those straps and sit up, you see."

"You did?" Totchli asked.

Neither the rabbit nor the fox was paying Bogo any mind, apparently lost in their own discussion. "I did," the fox replied, his tone quite gentle, "You're not seeing this other Nick now, are you?"

"No..." she replied, drawing out the word, "And you really don't remember anything before you woke up?"

The fox shook his head. "Last thing I remember is falling asleep while being carried back."

Bogo felt a stab of guilt as he watched them. He had ignored it before, in his zeal to question them, but both of the mammals before him showed every sign of being on the ragged edge of thirst and hunger. There was a gauntness to both of them—the fox especially—and he realized just how hard they must have pushed to try to get information about Cencerro back to him. It was a small wonder, really, that Totchli had started hallucinating. "You're tired, hungry, and thirsty, Ensign Totchli," Bogo said, "I'll send for some food and drink for the both of you."

Both mammals turned toward him, Totchli's face betraying a surprise that the fox's didn't, and Bogo saw again just how worn she must have been.

"Sir—" Totchli began protesting, but she fell silent when the fox nudged her.

Bogo stuck his head outside the carriage long enough to put in an order with one of his guards and then turned back to his papers, pointedly turning his attention away from the pair. When he sensed that Totchli was about to speak again, he cut her off before she had the chance to get so much as a word out without looking up from the page. "Getting some rest is an order, Ensign," he said, as mildly as he could, and she stayed silent.

* * *

The food that was brought into the carriage wasn't much—a thin and salty vegetable broth served with hard rolls—but there was a lot of it, and both mammals fell to their bowls as though it was the most delicious meal they had ever eaten. Each of them guzzled down the canteens of cool water that had been brought in to accompany the soup, and when they were finished sopping up the last of the soup with the remains of their rolls they both looked almost sated.

"The question now is what do I do about Lieutenant Colonel Cencerro," Bogo said, speaking as though it was the next natural part of their conversation.

For him, at least, it was, and neither the rabbit nor the fox seemed surprised at his abrupt opening. It was what had occupied his thoughts the entire time he waited for their food to arrive and while they ate. Totchli looked up at him sharply. "Do you know where he is, sir?"

"I do," Bogo replied, and he explained the version of events that Cencerro had given.

The words came out with surprising ease; he supposed that on some level he really did simply trust Totchli. Certainly she was a mammal who didn't seem well-versed at keeping things secret, even when it would benefit her. If it was an act, it was a truly impressive one, and Bogo didn't think anyone with an ulterior motive would have acted as she did, calling her own credibility into doubt. The raw emotion could have been faked, perhaps; when Bogo had been a lieutenant he had arrested a con artist who could cry on command, which she had used to great effect in a trick involving a supposedly valuable ring. That con artist had been, coincidentally enough, a vixen, but Bogo pushed aside the memory of that long-ago case. Perhaps Totchli wasn't the only one who needed some rest, but there was still far too much to do.

As he turned his attention back toward Ensign Totchli, he realized, to his chagrin, that she had apparently said something and was waiting for a response, but he had no idea what it had been. Thankfully, and it struck Bogo as something odd to be glad about, the fox didn't have anything in the way of respect for the chain of command. "So you  _don't_ think Cencerro's telling the truth," the fox said, but his eyes were cynical as he looked up at Bogo.

That, at least, gave Bogo a way to rejoin the conversation. "I don't," he said at last, "Ensign, I'm sure you understand the gravity of my saying so."

She nodded seriously, as did the fox. Then again, from what Bogo had seen, he probably understood the laws of Zootopia better than half his officers. The beginning of an idea tickled at his mind, and Bogo set it aside for later, for after he had dealt with Cencerro. His plan for that, at least, was relatively simple to start with, and it didn't take long to make the arrangements to have Cencerro brought to his carriage.

* * *

Bogo liked to think that he was not a stupid mammal, and he had taken every reasonable precaution before allowing Cencerro to be brought into his carriage. Having him searched and stripped of anything he could use in combat was his primary concern, as without either a weapon or a quauhxicalli the sheep didn't exactly stand a chance against him in a fight. It was also the sort of precaution that wouldn't appear unusual to the fussy and rule-bound lieutenant colonel, particularly under such dire circumstances.

Bogo had expected that Diego Cencerro might put on something of a show upon seeing Totchli again. Perhaps claim how glad he was to see that she had survived, perhaps eagerly demand to hear the story of how she had done so. What actually happened when Cencerro entered the carriage, though, was something Bogo couldn't have guessed in his wildest imaginings. The sheep turned to Totchli, politely extending one hoof. "Lieutenant Colonel Diego Cencerro," he said, "It's a pleasure to meet you, Ensign...?"

Totchli gaped at Cencerro in open astonishment, and Bogo supposed that if he hadn't had better control of himself he might have done the same. Pretending not to know who the rabbit was seemed to be about the weakest possible play that Cencerro could make. "Totchli," the doe said at last, hesitantly accepting Cencerro's proffered hoof as though it was something poisonous, "We've... already met, lieutenant colonel."

"Impossible," Cencerro said, rigidly shaking his head, "I saw Ensign Totchli die with my own eyes. Captain General Bogo, this rabbit is an impostor."

"What's that make me, Diego?" the fox asked sharply, not even giving the sheep the courtesy of his title, "Do you remember your old pal, Nick?"

"You're not Nicholas of the Middle Baronies," Cencerro said, shaking his head again, and then he turned his attention back to Bogo.

"I'm not sure what these mammals have been telling you, but they're not who they say they are," Cencerro said.

His posture was just as stiff and his words were just as precise as ever, but to Bogo's eyes there was something dreadfully off about the sheep. His face was unnaturally tight and his eyes appeared almost sunken, and his fingers seemed to be shaking at his sides. "So far as I know, I'm the  _only_  fox alchemist," the fox observed dryly, "Or do you have an interesting theory for how I'd be faking that?"

"It's not up to me to explain your trickery,  _fox_!" Cencerro said, spitting the word, "You think you're clever, but you're not."

"Lieutenant Colonel," Bogo began, "Please—"

"And you!" Cencerro said, jerkily turning to face him, "Can't you see?"

The sheep's face worked unpleasantly, as though he had lost control of himself. One eye twitched, his mouth twisting in a grimace. "Don't... Don't you  _see_?" he asked, "You're a... a..."

Cencerro grimaced as though he had tasted something unpleasant. "The picture," he choked out at last, "The bigger picture."

Totchli and the fox exchanged worried glances, and Bogo couldn't blame them. It was looking less like Cencerro was trying some strategy to avoid punishment for his crimes and more like he was suffering from some kind of breakdown. Any thought that Totchli might have been lying had completely vanished in the face of Cencerro's bizarre behavior, but the sheep clearly knew something. "It's over, Cencerro," Bogo said as gently as he could, "Tell me everything you know and I can guarantee you a cell instead of a noose."

"I... I..." Cencerro began, but he never got the chance to finish.

There was a muffled cracking noise like a whip being snapped from behind a wall that seemed to come from inside Cencerro's head, and then the sheep collapsed to the floor like a puppet with its strings cut. Ensign Totchli was on the floor and cradling his head before Bogo could even begin to warn her that it might be a trap, but she pulled back nearly the instant she touched him with a cry of alarm.

Thin trickles of blood were coming from all of Cencerro's orifices, and there was a horribly deflated look to his head where it touched the ground; the flesh under his close-cropped wool had deformed as though he didn't have a skull.

"He's dead," Totchli said, a stunned look coming across her face.

The fox walked over to the corpse and carefully pushed against Cencerro's forehead with one finger. Just like the side of his head had, it pushed inward with no visible resistance, and the fox pulled his paw back in obvious disgust. "I think all the bones in his head got transmuted into sand," he said.

The blood coming from Cencerro's nostrils did have an oddly grainy texture to it, and Bogo saw no reason to doubt the alchemist's assessment. "Who could have  _done_ that?" Totchli asked, echoing the question that was on Bogo's mind.

"It'd be pretty gruesome if that's the one piece of alchemy Cencerro knew," the fox said, his voice thoughtful, "I've seen things pulled out of the ruins of Quimichpatlan Barony, though, little alchemical gadgets that just need a complete philosopher's stone to power them. Maybe about the size of a pea for something like this."

"The Alchemist Guild or a very wealthy mammal, then," Totchli said.

It was not, unfortunately, a particularly helpful way of narrowing things down. All of the mammals Bogo considered his top suspects were quite wealthy, and all had connections in some way or another to the Alchemist Guild. "It's another clue," Bogo said before he realized he had spoken the words aloud.

"It's another opportunity to catch the mastermind," he continued, and Totchli slowly nodded.

They hadn't learned much from Cencerro directly, but Bogo thought he had indirectly learned quite a bit. Someone had been keeping a very close eye on the sheep, someone who had either murdered him or given him what he needed to commit suicide. If it was the former, it meant that the mastermind, or at least someone higher up the chain of conspiracy than Cencerro, was indeed close by. If it was the latter, there might still be some hint as to how Cencerro had arranged his own death, perhaps starting with the code book Totchli had recovered from his office. Another mammal might have been discouraged by the dead end, but Bogo wasn't. He knew he was on the right track, and if nothing else a traitor to the City Guard was gone. Beyond that, all there was to do was push onward.

Bogo arranged to have the corpse removed and subjected to an autopsy with the guards keeping pace with his carriage, the fox and the rabbit watching quietly as it was removed. He hadn't ordered them to leave, and so they stayed in the carriage, watching mutely while Bogo made arrangements for the next round of follow up. In particular, it seemed as though any information that could be gleaned by the other "survivors" of Phoenix would be quite useful, and he wrote a brief message demanding any answers that could be achieved.

Beyond that, though, as he pondered his next move and worked on refining the idea that had come to him, he watched the two mammals sitting in front of him. The fox seemed, if anything, more affected by Cencerro's bizarre death; Totchli had the look of a mammal impatiently waiting for an order. He thought he knew exactly the order she needed, and so he set his pen down and looked up.

"I think the queen and the princess will be quite interested in speaking with you," Bogo said to her, and he couldn't help but enjoy the simple wonder and pleasure that spread across Totchli's face.

It was nice, in such dangerous times, to have those reminders that some mammals gave the royal family the proper respect. "And congratulating you on your promotion, of course."

"My promotion, sir?" Totchli said, and Bogo noted that the insides of her ears were flushing.

"Yes, Commandant Totchli, your promotion."

Promoting her immediately to lieutenant might have been reward enough, except that the idea that had formed in his mind required her to be of a somewhat higher rank. And if anyone complained, he was still the captain general. It wasn't as though he could lose the job a second time.

"Congratulations!" the fox said, turning to the rabbit, "No one can say you didn't earn it."

"I never could have done it without you," she said, her voice thick as she looked back at the fox.

Her eyes were beginning to look somewhat watery, and Bogo turned his attention away from the uncomfortable show of emotion to the alchemist. "Indeed not. I believe congratulations are also in order for you, Nicholas of the Middle Baronies."

The fox scratched at one ear, and Bogo did his best to keep his face neutral. The alchemist was clearly clever enough to realize that Bogo was about to do something, even if he didn't know what it was. Considering the impressive display of alchemy the work he had done healing Totchli had been, the decision Bogo had come to seemed obvious. Unprecedented problems required unprecedented solutions, after all.

"Thanks," the fox said, his tone somewhat sheepish even as Totchli beamed at him, "Just doing my part to keep Zootopia safe."

"Indeed," Bogo replied, knowing he was about to commit to his decision.

It would, perhaps, be the biggest headache he had ever made for himself, but so close to engaging the enemy he needed all the help he could get. "And you'll continue to do so," he went on.

At the fox's expression of mild confusion, Bogo leaned forward across his desk, letting his most dangerous smile creep across his face. "I'm drafting you, Captain Nicholas."

* * *

**Author's Notes:**

Patolli was last mentioned all the way back in chapter 1, and it is a real Aztec game of luck and strategy. Nick was notably good—or the guards he was playing against were notably bad—but Judy has never been shown playing it. Whether Bogo is right that she wouldn't be very good at gambling may be more than a little colored by his own biases.

In venomous snakes, it is often the case that younger snakes are less venomous than adults, as Bogo believes to be the case for Ehecatls. On the other hand, younger snakes are frequently more likely to inject venom than adult snakes, and to inject more of it, which can make their bites more dangerous.

The confidence trick Bogo briefly describes has a huge number of different ways it can be executed, but commonly goes something like this: one con artist approaches the victim, begging for help to find a lost item of significant value, like a ring or a necklace. The con artist eventually moves on, and a second confidence artist "finds" the lost item in front of the victim. The second con artist feigns indifference to the story the victim tells them of the first con artist who lost the item, but eventually offers to sell the item to the victim. The actual item is, naturally, cheap and nearly valueless, and the con artists pocket the victim's money. Depending on how exactly the two con artists perform the trick, the first may offer a significant reward for the return of their item, and the price that the second con artist demands of the victim is conveniently significantly less than that to motivate the victim by playing on their greed to make a profit.

This chapter indirectly suggests a reason why there are some things in the ruins under Phoenix that seem more advanced than what anyone has in the present of the story; they need philosopher's stones to power them, and those are expensive and difficult to make. While in those ruins, Judy did see a building that seemed to have been partially transmuted into sand, lending some credence as to Nick's theory for what happened to Cencerro's head.

In being promoted directly to commandant, Judy is skipping the intermediary ranks of lieutenant and captain and ends up in the rank immediately senior to Nick's newfound position as a captain and immediately junior to Cencerro's rank of lieutenant colonel.

As to why Nick comes in as a captain, I figured it made sense based on real world militaries. In many modern militaries, the rank of captain is where officers with professional credentials like a medical doctorate start, skipping the lower ranks. Considering that being an alchemist requires a great deal of study and has the potential for enormous earning as a civilian, I figured that it made sense for the City Guard to allow alchemists to skip some of the lower ranks as part of the incentive to join.

As always, thanks for reading! If you're so inclined to leave a comment, I'd love to know what you thought.


End file.
